Trump says seeking $1.6 billion in damages from Harvard

Trump accused Harvard of promoting "woke" ideology and not protecting Jewish students during protests. Photo / Getty Images

US President Donald Trump has said his administration would seek US$1 billion ($1.6b) in damages from Harvard University after a New York Times report said the college had won some concessions in ongoing settlement negotiations with his government.

Trump administration officials have accused Harvard and other colleges of promoting so-called “woke” ideology while failing to sufficiently protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian protests, filing legal complaints and demanding exorbitant payouts.

Critics have called it a pressure campaign by the administration on liberal universities.

“We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

The New York Times had previously reported Trump had dropped his administration’s demands for a settlement payout of US$200 million from Harvard, after protracted talks.

Trump told reporters last September that negotiations were close to reaching a US$500m settlement with Harvard, with part of the deal including the opening of trade schools.

“They wanted to do a convoluted job training concept, but it was turned down in that it was wholly inadequate and would not have been, in our opinion, successful,” Trump said in his post this week.

“It was merely a way of Harvard getting out of a large cash settlement of more than US$500m, a number that should be much higher for the serious and heinous illegalities that they have committed,” he added, without specifying what laws Harvard has allegedly broken.

“This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event,” he added, without specifying the basis for criminal action or charges he envisaged could be involved.

Targeting of universities

The Trump administration’s pressure on universities has sparked some academics, including Harvard’s former president, to raise concern about the possibility of eroding academic freedom.

“The truth here is that our government, the American government, is attacking higher ed and universities,” former Harvard president Claudine Gay said in September at an event in the Netherlands.

“The agenda here is about destroying knowledge institutions because they are centres of independent thought and information,” the political professor, who stepped down as president in 2024, added.

Trump has previously sought to cut more than US$2.6b of funding to Harvard, and has moved to block entry of international students – a quarter of its student body.

Fellow Ivy League institution Columbia University agreed to pay the Trump administration US$200m last summer and pledged to obey rules that bar it from taking race into consideration in admissions or hiring.

The University of Pennsylvania, another Ivy League institution, also bowed to Trump administration concerns last year, announcing it would ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports.

- Agence France-Presse