Trumps fund-freezing punishment for Harvard: Lettersto the Editor April 16, 2025

Shalom, Harvard University: The US government will end all your federal funding, tax your endowment into oblivion and end all your foreign funding (“Harvard rejects Trump’s demands,” April 15).It will issue no foreign student visas.Disagreeing alumni will cease all donations.

Jewish parents, whose children make up 20% of your student body, will send their tuition money elsewhere.You will simply cease to exist and you deserve no less.Jeffrey LevyBrooklynThis is not an attack on academia but a demand for accountability.Harvard’s $50 billion endowment and its research on cancer and climate solutions underscore its privilege — but responsibility must match.Columbia’s $400 million cut, later negotiated back, shows the stakes.Federal funds aren’t an entitlement; they’re a contract.Ronald BeatyWest Barnstable, Mass.President Trump views everything as transactional.

He is using financial threats — pulling research grants, revoking accreditation and taxing endowments — to divide and weaken universities, just as he has done with law firms, countries and other institutions.Trump’s goal in this is not negotiation — it is domination.Jagjit SinghLos Altos, Calif.Poor Harvard? I feel no compassion for Ivy League schools that allow Jew-hatred to run rampant across their campuses.They will suffer greatly, losing billions of taxpayers’ dollars, threatening their ability to attract research contracts.The long-term consequences of not complying with the Trump administration’s requests will be the loss of Jewish PhD applicants — without which any accreditation system will be distinctly second-rate.Len BennettDeerfield Beach, Fla.Harvard’s attitude is incredibly ignorant, arrogant and dangerous.If it were in my power, I would not provide a penny of federal funds to Harvard University.Surely the backlash will cause Harvard to suffer in many other ways.Thomas BirnbaumManhattanWhy are we giving these colleges a penny of our hard-earned tax dollars in the f...