The US Department of Human Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Monday that it is referring Harvard University for administrative suspension and exclusion procedures, a measure that would prevent the institution from signing contracts with government agencies or receiving any federal funding, including research scholarships and student aid.
If the exclusion is made, Harvard would lose a crucial source of financing, a new financial blow after the freezing of more than $ 2.6 billion in federal funds existing during the Trump administration. The university has 20 days to request a hearing before an HHS administrative judge to appeal the decision.
This is the first time the Trump administration has threatened Harvard with the total suspension of federal financing, an increase in the university dispute, as negotiations for an agreement between the parties would be paralyzed.
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Referral to suspension of federal financing occurs three months after HHS reported university leaders that Harvard acted with “deliberate indifference” in the face of campus anti -Semitism allegations, and two months after the agency forwarding the university to the Justice Department for more rigorous surveillance. HHS stated that both he and doj kept “extensive communications” with the university in failed attempts to ensure “voluntary compliance” with federal investigations.
HHS Civil Rights Office, Paula Stannard, stated that the decision “reflects OCR’s commitment to protect both taxpayers and the broader public interest.”
The Trump administration accused Harvard of insufficient cooperation in multiple federal civil rights investigations. On September 19, the Department of Education said Harvard refused to provide documents and data requested by investigators who investigate whether the university discriminated based on race in admissions.
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Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The measure occurs just over a week after $ 46 million in previously frozen federal scholarships begin to be released to the University of Ivy League by HHS, after a district judge considered the suspension of financing by Trump administration illegal. Administration has announced that it will appeal the decision.
It is a new tactic in the Trump administration pressure campaign against elite universities, with potentially broad consequences.
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If Harvard does not win the appeal at the administrative hearing, it will be prohibited indefinitely from receiving any federal government financing. This would also make university students ineligible for federal financial aid, student loans and scholarships such as the prestigious Fulbright program and Harry S. Truman bags.
Exclusion would represent the “total annihilation” of federal financing, said Robert Kelchen, professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
He classified the measure as the “second largest lever” to pressure the oldest and richest university in the US. The only greatest threat, he said, would be to revoke the institution’s tax exemption status.
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“This is the maximum pressure,” he said.
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