Trump Threatens to Nix Harvard's Tax-Exempt Status if it Fails to Embrace His Ideological Agenda

Apr 17, 2025

Donald Trump has been using the specter of antisemitism as an excuse to impose ideological control over universities by threatening to cut off federal funding. Columbia University caved, but Harvard has resisted—so Trump is escalating by threatening their tax-exempt status.

CNN has the scoop:

The Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, according to two sources familiar with the matter, which would be an extraordinary step of retaliation as the Trump administration seeks to turn up pressure on the university that has defied its demands to change its hiring and other practices.
A final decision on rescinding the university’s tax exemption is expected soon, the sources said. …
The administration already has blocked more than $2 billion in funding from the nation’s oldest university, which is fighting the White House’s policy demands, citing the constitutional right of private universities to determine their own teaching practices.
The Trump administration has threatened numerous colleges across the US with funding cuts if changes in school policy weren’t made, and Harvard’s resistance appears to mark the first time an elite university has rebuked the White House over those demands.

It is hard to decide which part of this power grab is more egregious: the attempt to exert political control over the universities, or the attempt to make the IRS into a partisan instrument of intimidation against anyone who defies the president.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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