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Former President Barack Obama applauded Harvard University’s decision to refuse the White House’s demands to change his policies or lose federal money in his first social media post to criticize the Trump administration at least the day of taking office.
President Donald Trump is freezing more than $ 2 billion ($ 1.5 billion in British pounds) in Harvard federal funds, as he will not change the rent, acceptance and teaching practices that his administration has said are key to combating anti -Semitism in the campus.
Obama, Harvard’s alum, described the freezing as “illegal and the hands of the ham”.
He called on other institutions to follow Harvard’s leadership, not recognizing Trump’s demands.
“Harvard has set an example of other institutions with a higher ED, rejecting illegal experience and with a ham of the ham to suffocate academic freedom, while taking specific steps to make sure that all Harvard students can take advantage of an intellectual study, strict debate and mutual respect.”
The former president, who graduated from the Harvard Faculty of Law in 1991, rarely criticized or rebuked civil servants or government policies in social media after leaving the White House almost a decade ago. His posts during the election usually praised the Trump race, then Vice President Kamala Harris, and from the day of his entry into office, he published a major respect, personal messages and thoughts about sports.
Obama is one of the handful of political figures in the US and university staff who are now expressing themselves against the Trump administration’s attempts to reshape the best universities in the country by pressure to change what they are teaching and who hire and threaten to reduce research funding.
Hundreds of teachers at the University of Yale have published a letter expressing its support for Harvard’s decision to reject the demands of the Trump administration.
“We are standing together at a crossroads,” the letter said. “US universities are facing exceptional attacks that threaten the principles based on democratic society, including the rights of free expression, the association and academic freedom. We write as a faculty to ask you to stand with us now.”
Many universities in the United States receive some kind of federal funding, which is definitely the most research research in fields such as drug development.
Since Trump returned to service in January, elite institutions such as Stanford University had to freeze the hiring and reduction of budgets against the background of federal shrinkage.
Some of the funding has been stopped pressing universities to take steps that the Trump administration says will fight anti -Semitism. Trump accused them of failing to defend Jewish students during last year’s campus protests against Gaza war and US support for Israel.
Stanford President Jonathan Levin and provision Jenny Martinez said on Tuesday, said Harvard a statement that “universities should deal with legal criticism with humility and openness.”
“But the way to achieve a constructive change is not by destroying the nation’s ability to research or through the government to command a private institution,” they wrote.
While The University of Colombia relying some of Trump’s demands Earlier this month, Harvard became the first major university in the United States to use the opposite approach.
“No government – no matter which party is in power – it should not dictate what private universities can teach, to whom they can recognize and hire and which areas of training and investigation can follow,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement on Monday.
The Massachusetts Technology Institute (MIT) followed Harvard’s management on Monday and also rejected the demands of the Trump administration.
Despite the criticism, Trump is fast. On Tuesday, he made another strike against Harvard, threatening to cancel his tax exemption status.
Universities, as well as many charity organizations and religious groups, are exempt from the payment of federal income taxes. However, this valuable tax relief can be eliminated if the groups are involved in political activities or move away from their stated goals.