By Suzanne Bowdey

In case the world hasn’t noticed, Donald Trump isn’t exactly in a conciliatory mood when people ignore or question his directives. The president of Harvard University, Dr. Alan Garber, is betting $9 billion that he can be the first one to get this White House to blink in their icy feud over federal funding. As far as most Americans are concerned, if Harvard wants to go to war to defend the campus’s disgusting culture of anti-Semitism, have at it. But believing this administration will bend shows how uneducated the Ivy League is.

A little over two weeks ago, when the Department of Education announced it was taking a deeper look at Harvard’s government contracts and grants, Garber sounded surprisingly contrite, writing in an open letter to the school’s community on March 31 that “Urgent action and deep resolve are needed to address this serious problem. … It is present on our campus,” he acknowledged. “I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president.”

He went further, pledging to “engage with members of the federal government’s task force to combat antisemitism to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism. We resolve,” Garber declared firmly, “to take the measures that will move Harvard and its vital mission forward while protecting our community and its academic freedom. By doing so, we combat bias and intolerance as we create the conditions that foster the excellence in teaching and research that is at the core of our mission.”

By April 11, that goodwill had evaporated. Garber, reading what concrete steps Harvard would have to take to eliminate — not just anti-Semitism, but DEI, viewpoint discrimination, critical theory, objectionable hiring and admittance practices — made the regrettable decision to resist, openly defying Trump in a missive of his own.

“We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” No government, the university’s president continued, “regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” They have vowed, Garber declared, to fight.

But there’s one thing everyone should have learned from the tariff wars, and that is just how quickly things can escalate. The president, not surprisingly, only turned the heat up hotter — stripping Harvard, not just of $9 billion in government dollars but threatening its tax status too. Calling the school a “joke,” Trump railed against the campus on Truth Social Wednesday, calling out their recently departed “plagiarizing President, who so greatly embarrassed Harvard before the United States Congress.” “Many others, like these Leftist dopes, are teaching at Harvard, and because of that, Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges. Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.”

Perhaps, Trump warned, “Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’” Remember, he pointed out, “Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST.” And, not-so-inconveniently, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has a bill that would tax Ivy League schools’ endowments (in Harvard’s case, a healthy $50 billion pool) and use the money to deliver tax cuts for working-class Americans.

The hard reality is this, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch”: federal dollars always come with strings attached. “This is about an investment, not entitlement. And investment means that we want the return on investment.” Instead, he explained, “What we’ve shown over the decades is that Harvard, with its Marxist-based culture, has given us a terrible return on investment. … It’s a private school, so I think they should do what they want to do — just don’t expect taxpayer dollars.”

If Harvard’s leaders want to cultivate a cesspool of radical wokeism and anti-Semitism, fine. “Let them use [their] over $50 billion [endowment] … and see how well it goes for them,” Owens insisted. As for Garber’s claim that the nation is somehow risking “the health and well-being of millions of individuals” by forcing them to adopt a more civil, objective approach, baloney, Perkins declared. “I hate to say this, but it sounds like he has an inflated view of Harvard University.”

This idea that taxpayers need to float universities that “hate our country and teach our kids how to hate our country” is absurd, Owens agreed. He believes higher education needs a wake-up call that these “elitist colleges” are “not for our good.” Instead, we need schools “where kids can come out without the debate [and] with a degree that means something.” And if places like Harvard “won’t change their ways,” the congressman cautioned, “they will go the way of the dinosaur. I really believe that.”

As most observers will tell you, dismantling these incubators for extreme political indoctrination has been a goal of Trump’s for years. Leading up to the election, a recurring theme of his campaign was the need to target campuses that were unapologetically pushing a leftist agenda. To those who argue the president has overstepped and should not interfere with a private school’s policy, FRC’s Meg Kilgannon disagrees. Frankly, she told The Washington Stand, “It is not possible to press this issue too far. Why are we borrowing money from China to give it to ridiculously endowed universities like Harvard? This kind of wealth transfer is absurd and immoral — making our future children pay for this kind of spending.”

In this case, the New York Post’s Michael Goodwin suggests, “Harvard and its defenders act as if antisemitic campus rallies are a civil right for the school instead of a violation of Jewish students’ civil rights! … As others have noted, what would we call this blanket defense if the students who had been harmed were black instead of Jews?” Instead, the university has only proven itself “a font of anti-Americanism … elitism, and suppression of free speech.” And, he added, “In refusing even to negotiate, the so-called best and brightest have opened themselves to massive financial penalties.”

And it’s not as if fomenting all of this progressivism is cheap. The operating budget for Harvard was an eye-popping $6.4 billion in 2024, and 16% of it came from U.S. taxpayers.

There is, of course, an easy solution, Goodwin notes. “Harvard can reject all federal funds, as some schools, including Hillsdale College, do, and free itself from Washington. The one thing it cannot do is have it both ways. If it takes federal money, it has to play by federal rules,” he stressed. “The trade-off is so simple that even Harvard should be able to understand it.”

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.