Harvard University is one of the most prestigious colleges in America.
Last year, hip-hop fans reveled in the back-and-forth battle between two of the genre’s biggest stars, Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
While hip-hop does not have an active battle on that level this year, America does have a battle to witness between President Donald Trump and one of its most prestigious institutions of higher learning.
However, this battle is significant because it touches on the foundation of America, the Constitution, and the freedoms that many come to the United States to enjoy.
NPR reported, “The Trump administration, acting on its claims that Harvard has failed to stamp out antisemitism on campus, froze more than $2 billion in research grants and contracts in April and attempted to revoke the school’s ability to enroll international students last week. The university is suing the federal government for both actions.”
Harvard University President Alan Garber said President Trump’s actions are “perplexing.”
Garber said that he knows work needs to be done to address antisemitism on the Ivy League campus.
However, he does not seek the link between antisemitism and funding freezes.
Garber said that it is imperative that universities stand firm, double down and continue their “commitment to the good of the nation.”
He said, “Why cut off research funding? Sure, it hurts Harvard, but it hurts the country because, after all, the research funding is not a gift.
Garber added that the money is granted to projects considered “high-priority work.”
Trump recently asked federal agencies to cancel approximately $100 million in Harvard government projects by June 6.
The president also wanted the Massachusetts university to grant him access to the school’s admissions.
NPR reported, “The Trump administration’s multi-billion dollar funding freeze came after Harvard refused demands to change policies around hiring and admissions, eliminate DEI programs, or screen international students who are ‘supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism,’ as the administration put it…
“After a federal judge blocked the administration’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll international students last week, Trump posted on his Truth Social that the home countries of those students are ‘not at all friendly to the United States’ and ‘pay NOTHING toward their student’s education.’ The president’s post also said his administration wants ‘to know who those foreign students are.’”
Notably, Trump’s Truth Social post was grammatically incorrect.
The president should have written “their students’ education” and not “their student’s education.”
It can be assumed that many countries send multiple students to Harvard, not just one student, which is what his grammar implied.
Trump has hinted at transferring $3 billion of Harvard’s” scientific and engineering research funds to trade school, although trade schools do not usually conduct scientific or engineering research.
On Truth Social, the president posted, “What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!”
Trump again called Harvard antisemitic in that post.
But he did not offer any specifics to his accusation.
Trump’s rhetoric against hate, racism, and antisemitism seems new because during his first term, he infamously stated that there were good people on both sides of a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va.
When critics asked him to condemn White nationalists and neo-Nazis, he seemed to have a problem doing so.
Writing for Congress.gov, Rosie Gray wrote, “Speaking in the lobby of Trump Tower at what had been billed as a statement on infrastructure, a combative Trump defended his slowness to condemn White nationalists and neo-Nazis after the melee in central Virginia, which ended in the death of one woman and injuries to dozens of others, and compared the tearing down of Confederate monuments to the hypothetical removal of monuments to the Founding Fathers. He also said that the counterprotesters deserve an equal amount of blame…
“The Unite the Right rally that sparked the violence in Charlottesville featured several leading names in the White nationalist alt-right movement. As they walked down the street, the White-nationalist protestors chanted ‘blood and soil,’ the English translation of a Nazi slogan.”
After two days of intense pressure, Trump finally condemned White supremacists and said, “racism is evil.”
The Nazi slogan is synonymous with the Holocaust, which resulted in the extermination of millions of Jews.
Nevertheless, protests against the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza, which some have said threatened the safety of Jewish college students, are getting different treatment from the president than the incident in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.
Reuters reported, “Trump, a Republican, has frozen some $3 billion in federal grants to Harvard in recent weeks, complaining that it has hired Democrats, ‘Radical Left idiots and bird brains’ as professors. Harvard, a private university, has sued to restore the funding, saying the cuts are an unconstitutional attack on free speech rights and unlawful.
“Most of the grant money is appropriated by Congress for the National Institutes of Health to disburse to fund biomedical research after a lengthy application process by individual scientists, work that is typically not done in trade schools.”
Furthermore, the Trump administration is also considering halting new interviews for foreign students seeking visas.
The administration plans to spend more time vetting the social media history of potential students.
Many universities rely on foreign students to help boost their finances.
The cable states, “Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued septel, which we anticipate in the coming days.”
Septel is an abbreviation for separate telegram.
