The Department of Education said on Monday it was freezing about $2.3 billion in federal funds to Harvard University over the school's decision to fight White House demands, including that it shut down diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
"Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation's most prestigious universities and colleges - that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws," said a department task force on combating antisemitism in a statement.
The task force said it was freezing $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contract value to Harvard.
The funding freeze comes after the Trump administration said last month it was reviewing $9 billion in federal contracts and grants to Harvard as part of a crackdown on what it says is antisemitism that erupted on college campuses during pro-Palestinian protests in the past 18 months.
The administration has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for numerous universities, pressing the institutions to make policy changes and citing what it says is a failure to fight antisemitism on campus.
Deportation proceedings have begun against some detained foreign students who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, while visas for hundreds of other students have been canceled.
The Trump administration's move on Monday came after Harvard rejected numerous demands from the Trump administration that it said would cede control of the school to a conservative government that portrays universities as dangerously leftist.
Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a public letter on Monday that demands made by the Department of Education last week would allow the federal government "to control the Harvard community" and threaten the school's "values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge."
"No government - regardless of which party is in power - should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," Garber wrote.