Donald Trump says he is ‘going to take away’ Harvard’s tax-exempt status
May 02, 2025 09:14 PM IST
Donald Trump plans to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, citing its failure to address campus antisemitism.
Donald Trump has vowed to remove Harvard University’s tax-exempt status. In a post shared on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday, the president declared that the prestigious institution deserves it.
US President Donald Trump delivers remarks to graduating students at the Coleman Coliseum at the University of Alabama on May 01, 2025 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.(AFP)
Trump vows to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” the president wrote. His announcement comes a week after the Trump administration asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to do so over the school’s failure to address antisemitism on campus.
A spokesperson for the university said in a statement to Fox News, “The government has long exempted universities from taxes in order to support their educational mission.” They noted that the university has provided more than $749 million in financial aid in 2024.
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“The tax exemption means that more of every dollar can go toward scholarships for students, lifesaving and life-enhancing medical research, and technological advancements that drive economic growth. There is no legal basis to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status,” the spokesperson went on.
The statement further said, “Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission. It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation.”
“The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America,” the statement concluded. This is not the first time that Trump has criticised Harvard. He previously wrote on Truth Social that the university had “lost its way.”
In his scathing post, the president argued that the university does not deserve federal funding because it had “been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders.’”
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