OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
11:52 AM – Tuesday, April 15, 2025
As Harvard University confronts a funding block for its purported inaction on antisemitism on campus, former President Barack Obama praised the university in a statement for refusing to comply with President Donald Trump’s “demands.”
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At the start of the week, the Trump administration announced that over $2 billion in federal grants for the university will be frozen.
“Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions — rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect,” Obama posted on X late on Monday. “Let’s hope other institutions follow suit.”
However, Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate, also remained silent on the funding freeze and the ongoing accusations of widespread antisemitism on campus.
In addition, Obama recently voiced concerns—though many have dismissed them as merely performative—about the White House’s “actions targeting institutions” at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.
“I don’t think what we just witnessed in terms of economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America, but that’s a specific policy. I’m more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech,” Obama said, according to a transcript of his remarks.
The Democrat urged academic institutions to resist what he described as intimidation tactics.
“If you are a university, you may have to figure out, are we in fact doing things right? Have we in fact violated our own values, our own code, violated the law in some fashion? If not and you’re just being intimidated, well, you should be able to say, that’s why we got this big endowment,” Obama stated, according to the transcript.
“We’ll stand up for what we believe in and we’ll pay our researchers for a while out of that endowment and we’ll give up the extra wing or the fancy gymnasium — that we can delay that for a couple of years because academic freedom might be a little more important,” he added.
Trump declared on Tuesday morning that Harvard’s “tax-exempt status” should be revoked after the university refused to abide by a number of conditions, pertaining to discrimination and Islamist terrorist group sympathizing, made by the Trump administration.
A slew of Ivy League college professors in the U.S. have been accused in the last decade of sympathizing with Muslim terrorist groups, while uplifting communism and socialism, in addition to criticizing Israel’s government and traditional Christian beliefs.
“Perhaps 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, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Since Harvard University is an educational institution, it is currently not subject to federal income tax. The university also states that it is not subject to Massachusetts’ state income tax.
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