President Donald Trump said Friday that he will revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, the latest move in the escalating clash between the administration and the Ivy League school.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The president had previously suggested the university should lose its tax-exempt status. His latest statement came after Harvard sued the administration over its decision to freeze more than $2 billion in funding to the Ivy League school. The administration claimed the university was refusing to follow the administration’s demands that it take actions aimed at ending antisemitism on campus.
“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?’” Trump threatened in a Truth Social post last month. He added, “Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”
Responding to Trump’s announcement Friday, Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton said that the government has “long exempted universities from taxes in order to support their educational mission” and that there was no legal basis to rescind its status.
“The tax exemption means that more of every dollar can go toward scholarships for students, lifesaving and life-enhancing medical research, and technological advancements that drive economic growth,” he said.
Newton added that revoking the university’s tax-exempt status “would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission.”
“It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation,” he continued. “The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America.”
In its lawsuit, Harvard accused the Trump administration of violating the First Amendment and other laws and regulations after it paused $2.2 billion in grants. The school called on a federal judge to declare the move unconstitutional and order the government to reinstate the funding.
The federal government froze funding to Harvard after the school said it wouldn’t comply with “critical reforms” called for by the Trump administration. Some of those changes included a demand for the discontinuation of diversity, equity and inclusion programs as well as reforms to programs “with egregious records of antisemitism or other bias.”
Harvard President Alan Garber told NBC News’ Lester Holt last week that the research funded by the federal grants is unrelated to antisemitism, which the school said in its lawsuit it has taken steps to address on its campus since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
“Putting that research at jeopardy because of claims of antisemitism seems to us to be misguided,” Garber said. “The effort to address antisemitism will not be advanced by shutting off funding.”
Tax-exempt nonprofit groups, known as 501(c)(3) organizations, are prohibited from participating in certain political activities, according to the Internal Revenue Service. “Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes,” the agency’s website says.
Soon after Trump’s Truth Social post, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and a group of other Senate Democrats sent a letter to the acting Treasury inspector general for tax administration requesting an investigation into the president’s targeting of Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
“It is both illegal and unconstitutional for the IRS to take direction from the President to target schools, hospitals, churches, or any other tax-exempt entities as retribution for using their free speech rights,” they wrote the official, Heather Hill.
They added, “We request that you review whether the President or his allies have taken any step to direct or pressure the IRS to take politically-motivated actions regarding the tax exempt status of the President’s political targets.”
Frank Thorp V contributed.
