Trump Admin Poised to Terminate Remaining Federal Contracts With Harvard
"This is all so wildly lawless," wrote one observer.
The Trump administration is moving to identify and terminate remaining federal contracts with Harvard University, a fresh blow in the White House's effort to undercut the Ivy League school.
The planned contract cuts, which tally an estimated $100 million, are outlined in a draft letter dated Tuesday from the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), which was obtained by The New York Times. The letter is being sent on Tuesday to federal agencies, per the Times, and states that the GSA is "assisting all federal agencies in a review for termination or transition of their federal government contracts with Harvard University and affiliates."
"Going forward, we also encourage your agency to seek alternative vendors for future services where you had previously considered Harvard," according to the letter, which is signed by Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum. Agencies must report back to Gruenbaum about the actions they plan to take with the contracts by June 6.
An administration official who spoke anonymously to the Times said that the move constitutes a total severing of the federal government's financial relationship with Harvard. An example of a contract that would be impacted is a U.S. National Institutes of Health grant worth $49,858 to study the effects of drinking coffee.
"This is all so wildly lawless," wrote Garrett M. Graff, a journalist and author, on Tuesday in response to the news.
Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law scholar and professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, wrote Tuesday: "Trump's latest retaliatory cancellation of all of Harvard's federal contracts (whatever the harm to national security!) erases any doubt that he is trying to punish Harvard with a Bill of Attainder that the Constitution would forbid as a usurpation of judicial power even if Congress went along."
A bill of attainder permits the government to punish a party for an alleged crime without first going through a judicial trial. In the U.S., they are unconstitutional.
The letter from the GSA follows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's decision last week to bar the school from enrolling foreign students and forcing international students already enrolled at Harvard to transfer elsewhere. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs handed down a temporary restraining order, halting the ban on international students while litigation proceeds.
DHS rationalized the decision by alleging that Harvard's leaders have failed to create a safe environment and allowed "anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators" to harass people, including Jewish students. The assertion that Harvard is not doing enough to protect Jewish students also featured in the letter from GSA.
The letter states that The Harvard Law Review gave a $65,000 fellowship to a law student who was accused of assaulting a Jewish student during a 2023 action in support of Palestine. That student did not admit wrongdoing and avoided criminal prosecution, per the Times. The student agreed to perform community service.
Also, according to the letter, "GSA understands that Harvard continues to engage in race discrimination, including in its admissions process and other areas of student life."
Since April, the federal government has frozen billions in funding to Harvard, per the Times. The university has sued in response.
Meanwhile, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that he is mulling taking $3 billion from Harvard and giving it to trade schools.
