Trump administration moves to cut federal contracts for Harvard

The Trump administration is asking federal agencies to cancel contracts with Harvard University worth about 100 million US dollars (£74 million), a senior administration official has said.

The US government has already cancelled more than 2.6 billion dollars (£1.9 billion) in federal research grants for the Ivy League school, which has pushed back on the administration’s demands for changes to several of its policies.

A draft letter from the General Services Administration directs agencies to review contracts with the university and seek alternate vendors.

The administration is planning to send a version of the letter on Tuesday, the official said.

The New York Times first reported on the letter.

US president Donald Trump has railed against Harvard in an intensifying clash with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, calling it a hotbed of liberalism and antisemitism.

Harvard filed a lawsuit on April 21 over the administration’s calls for changes to the university’s leadership, governance and admissions policies.

Since then, the administration has slashed the school’s federal funding, moved to cut off enrolment of international students and threatened its tax-exempt status.

The administration has identified about 30 contracts across nine agencies to be reviewed for cancellation, according to another administration official.

The contracts total roughly 100 million dollars, including executive training for department of homeland security officials.

Agencies with contracts that are deemed critical are being directed not to halt them immediately, but to devise a plan to transition to a different vendor other than Harvard.

The letter applies only to federal contracts with Harvard and not its remaining research grants.

Mr Trump laid into Harvard on social media over the weekend, threatening to cut an additional three billion dollars (£2.2 billion) in federal grants and give it to trade schools across the US. He did not explain which grants he was referring to or how they could be reallocated.

The president also accused Harvard of refusing to release the names of its foreign students. In a new line of attack, he argued that students’ home countries paid nothing towards their education and that some of the countries were “not at all friendly to the United States”.

International students are not eligible for federal financial aid, but Harvard offers its own aid to foreign and domestic students alike.

“We are still waiting for the foreign student lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of billions of dollars, how many radicalised lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our country,” Mr Trump said on social media.

It was not exactly clear what he was demanding. The federal government already has access to visa information and other records on foreign students at Harvard and other universities.

The department of homeland security has demanded that Harvard turn over a trove of files related to its foreign students, including disciplinary records and records related to “dangerous or violent activity”.

Harvard said it complied, but the agency said its response fell short and moved to revoke the university’s ability to enrol foreign students. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the move after Harvard sued.

Japan’s government said on Tuesday that it was looking for ways to help Harvard’s foreign students.

Education minister Toshiko Abe told reporters she planned to ask Japanese universities to compile measures to support international students.

The University of Tokyo, Japan’s top school, was considering temporarily accepting some Harvard students hit by the Trump sanctions.