Trump freezes $2B in funding for Harvard University

The Trump administration has said it is freezing more than $2bn in federal funds for Harvard University, hours after the elite college rejected a list of demands from the White House, the BBC writes.

The White House sent a list of demands to Harvard last week which it said were designed to fight antisemitism on campus. They included changes to hiring, admissions and teaching.

Since Donald Trump was re-elected, his government has tried to reshape elite universities by threatening to withhold federal funds, mostly spent on research.

Barack Obama, Yale and other academic institutions have come out in support of Harvard after the Trump administration elected to cut $2bn of its federal grants after the Ivy League school in Massachusetts rejected what it said was an attempt at “government regulation” of the university.