Harvard University puts up $250 million to shore up research hit by Trump freeze on grants

Harvard University is dedicating $250 million of its own funds to support researchers after US President Donald Trump's administration froze nearly $3 billion in federal grants and contracts in recent weeks, the university announced on Wednesday.

The elite Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of Trump's most prominent targets. The Republican president has been making an extraordinary effort to revamp private colleges and schools across the US that he says foster anti-American, Marxist and "radical left" ideologies. He has criticised Harvard in particular for hiring prominent Democrats to teaching or leadership positions.

Harvard is suing the Trump administration over its decision to cut off grants awarded to the school's researchers, mostly in the medical sciences. Harvard calls this an unconstitutional attempt to curtail academic freedom and speech rights.

The government announced the cuts last month, hours after Harvard's president, Dr Alan Garber, denounced a lengthy list of demands by the Trump administration to overhaul the school's leadership, teaching and admissions, and audit the views of its students and professors.

Garber, in a joint statement with Provost John Manning, said the Trump administration was "stopping lifesaving research" and called it an "extraordinarily challenging time" for the country's oldest and wealthiest university.

On Wednesday, Harvard said Garber was taking a temporary, voluntary pay cut of 25% starting in July. The university previously announced a hiring freeze.

The statement said Harvard "cannot absorb the entire cost" of the frozen grants, which the Trump administration says are worth more than $2.6 billion. The school said it was working with researchers to help them find alternative funding.

"The impact of such steps on the nation's scientific research enterprise could be severe and lasting," the statement said.

Trump's administration has accused Harvard of continuing to consider race when reviewing student applications and of allowing discrimination against Jews as a result of the pro-Palestinian student protest movement that roiled American campuses last year.

Harvard says its admissions practices comply with federal law and court rulings, and it continues to combat antisemitism and other prejudice on its campuses.

A federal judge in Boston has given the government until June 9 to respond to Harvard's lawsuit, and has scheduled a hearing for July 21.