Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 2

We noted in our prior post about Harvard's response to prior letters from the feds and its choice to litigate that it would likely prevail on the legal issues - eventually. But we also noted that the issues about which it was litigating were cutoffs of grants that had already been awarded. Absent something more than a letter, the cutoffs lacked any due process and thus were likely to be found illegal. Also, we noted that it would be harder for Harvard to prevail if the issue were focused on new grants or renewed grants. Not all grant applications are successful; not all existing grants are renewed.

To operate a research university successfully, there needs to be a continuing flow of new money as old grants expire.

Today, the Secretary of Education announced there would be no new grants. From Inside Higher Ed:

Harvard University won’t be getting any new grants, Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote in a blistering letter to the institution that was posted on the social media platform known as X. “Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni,” McMahon wrote. “You have an approximately $53 billion head start, much of which was made possible by the fact you are living within the walls of, and benefiting from, the prosperity secured by the United States of America and its free-market system you teach your students to despise.”

McMahon didn’t specify what grants she was referring to in the letter, sent Monday evening, but other media outlets reported that the Trump administration was cutting Harvard off from new research grants...

Full article at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/05/05/trump-admin-cuts-new-research-funding-harvard.

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Below is the letter: [Click on images to clarify.]

Source: https://ia600402.us.archive.org/9/items/2-final-hjaa-report.-the-soil-beneath-the-encampments/Harvard%20Letter%20from%20Secy%20of%20Ed%205-5-2025.pdf. Original from https://x.com/edsecmcmahon/status/1919517481313427594.