Trump has sought to bring several prestigious universities to heel over claims they tolerated campus "anti-Semitism", threatening their budgets, tax-exempt status and the enrolment of foreign students, but Harvard has refused to bow.
“This case involves the Government’s efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard,” the Ivy League university said in a lawsuit filed in a Massachusetts federal court that named several other institutions targeted by Trump, AFP reported.
“The Government’s actions flout not just the First Amendment, but also federal laws and regulations,” said the complaint which called Trump’s actions “arbitrary and capricious.”
Trump and his White House team have publicly justified their campaign against universities as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled “anti-Semitism” and a need to reverse diversity programs aimed at addressing historical oppresion of minorities.
The administration claims protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept across US college campuses last year were rife with anti-Semitism.
Many US universities, including Harvard, cracked down on the protests over the allegations at the time, with the Cambridge-based institution placing 23 students on probation and denying degrees to 12 others, according to protest organizers.
Other institutions, including Columbia University, have bowed to less far-ranging demands from the Trump administration, which claims that the educational elite is too left-wing.