President Donald Trump alleges that Harvard University’s faculty is populated by Democrats, “Radical Left Idiots and ‘bird brains.’” He also calls federal funding for the school’s faculty and students “a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.”
But as Trump wages war on one of the nation’s most elite universities, a Straight Arrow News review of government spending data shows that almost all of Harvard’s federal grants and contracts cover biomedical and other scientific research into some of the world’s most pressing needs.
What’s at risk
At Trump’s directive, the government is freezing or canceling about $3.3 billion that Harvard has used to research treatments for AIDS and cancer, the causes of dementia and Lou Gehrig’s disease, how to stop antibiotic-resistant infections and how to make hospital emergency rooms more efficient.
Political pressure
Harvard University had 629 grants and 42 contracts with the federal government this fiscal year. The Trump administration has canceled $3.3 billion in funding to the school.
“If you look at the activities of the university, so much of this is about research,” Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, told NPR. “There are so many discoveries that have come from Harvard and other research universities…The real question is how much value does the federal government get from its expenditures on research? There’s a lot of actual research demonstrating the returns to the American people have been enormous.”
The government data shows Harvard also received a $200,000 grant to study “the universe as a lab for dark matter physics”; $142,512 to determine “social bond formation and stress buffering effects in children and pet dogs”; and $38,151 to fund “an intersectional approach to transgender and/or binary college student mental health.”
Pressure from the president
As soon as he returned to office in January 2025, President Trump began pressuring elite universities over what he alleges is a liberal bias and their handling of the pro-Palestinian protests that roiled campuses across the nation last year.
Several schools – including other Ivy League institutions such as Columbia University – capitulated, ending diversity and equity programs, agreeing to crack down on protests and revamping programs like Middle Eastern studies.
Harvard, though, resisted, and Trump’s attacks on the university have escalated.
The Trump administration has announced three rounds of funding cuts, most recently last week. It also barred Harvard from enrolling citizens of other countries, although a federal judge has temporarily blocked that order pending further review, and Harvard says it will continue enrolling international students and scholars in the meantime. International students make up about one-fourth of Harvard’s student population.
In addition, Fox News reported that the State Department is investigating every Harvard student and faculty member who is in the United States on a visa.
‘Deeper and deeper and deeper’
“Harvard wants to fight,” Trump told reporters in the White House. “They want to show us how smart they are, and they’re getting their ass kicked…All they’re doing is getting in deeper and deeper and deeper. They’ve got to behave themselves.”
Administration officials have taken an increasingly harsh tone in communicating with Harvard, suggesting that diversity programs have eroded its academic standards and that international students have displaced Americans.
“Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country – and why is there so much HATE?” Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote to the university on May 5.
“Harvard University has made a mockery of this country’s higher education system,” McMahon said. “It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus. In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any sense of academic rigor.”
Harvard responds
Harvard rejects those allegations and has filed two lawsuits against the Trump administration: one to retain its right to admit international students and another to restore its federal funding.
“Federal funding has enabled researchers at Harvard to develop novel drugs to fight Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, engineer nano fibers to protect service members and first responders, support American astronauts in space, and design an artificial intelligence system that can be used to diagnose and treat cancer,” the university said in court papers.
It also argued that Trump is improperly trying to bend Harvard and other institutions to his will for his own political purposes.
“All told,” the university’s lawyers wrote, “the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries and innovative solutions.”
‘Work just won’t be performed’
Harvard had more than 600 grants from federal agencies during the current fiscal year, government data shows. Most were awarded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other agencies involved in medical and scientific research.
Garber, Harvard’s president, told NPR that most of the university’s research is performed at the government’s request and did not originate on campus.
Eliminating grants and contracts “means that work just won’t be performed,” Garber said.
AIDS, Alzheimer’s and ALS
The largest grant, for $223.3 million, was for statistical and data management of clinical trials for AIDS treatments. Another $69.2 million went to Harvard’s Center for AIDS Research, and $26.2 million supported the Harvard School of Public Health’s AIDS initiative in Botswana.
Most of the grants are significantly smaller. A $2.6 million project researched the effects of extreme heat and cold in the development of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia in elderly Americans. A description of the project on a government website notes that about 10 percent of Americans 65 and older have dementia, and “understanding the vulnerabilities of these populations is critical due to two of the most prominent upcoming global challenges: a growing aging population and a changing climate.”
Faculty members have lamented the loss of funding, as grants have been canceled in the middle of intensive research projects.
David Sinclair, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School, was working on a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the degenerative disorder known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He told ABC News the work was personal: his partner’s mother has ALS.
“What do I say to Serena’s mom?” he told ABC. “I haven’t talked to her yet. What do I say? That the research that looked so promising is now terminated? That her life is counting on us, and she’s just one of millions of people in this country who are counting on the research at Harvard Medical School to make the breakthroughs that will literally save their lives.”
Education
International students make up 27% of Harvard University’s student population. The Trump administration is trying to bar Harvard from enrolling non-Americans.
‘They’re hurting themselves’
Trump has floated the idea of diverting Harvard’s federal funding to trade schools. “What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!” he wrote last weekend on social media.
Trump also has suggested capping international enrollment at 15% as a condition for restoring Harvard’s grants and contracts. Currently, international students make up around 27% of Harvard’s student body.
The president says it’s up to Harvard to make concessions. “The last thing I want to do is hurt them,” Trump said. “They’re hurting themselves. They’re fighting.”
