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Harvard has raised the stakes in its fightback against the US government. On Monday, the world’s richest university sued the Trump administration over its freezing of $2.3 billion in funding.
The lawsuit claims the administration’s actions are unlawful, arbitrary and violate the university’s rights to free speech.
This was followed yesterday by a joint statement signed by more than 170 university leaders who criticised the “political interference now endangering American higher education”.
Trump has cut or threatened to cut funding to several elite universities over last year’s campus protests against the war on Gaza.
More than other academic institutions, Harvard can afford to be a bulwark against these attacks.
Its $53 billion endowment is larger than the GDP of some countries, and although more than 80 per cent of it is tied to specific use cases, the university has nearly $10 billion in unrestricted donations.
It separately holds $2 billion in liquid investments, roughly the amount Trump has put on hold.
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