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After Administration Freezes Funding for Harvard, Trump Has a Suggestion on Their Tax Status

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  April 15, 2025 12:30 PM

On Monday, Harvard University announced that they would not be complying with the Trump administration's directives, further highlighting their issue with antisemitism. Thus, the administration froze $2.2 billion for Harvard, and now, President Donald Trump himself is weighing in with another suggestion. 

As Trump began his post on Tuesday morning, "Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?'" Using all caps to stress his point, he also reminded that "Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!"

Trump is not the only one to suggest such a fate for the institution. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) chimed in to agree with the president's take, saying he's "absolutely right." 

"When a university abandons its duty to foster truth and safety, embracing divisive ideologies over public good, it forfeits that privilege," she added. "Time to hold them accountable!" Stefanik has been calling for "hold[ing] them accountable" for years when it comes to Harvard and other institutions that have not done enough to fight antisemitism since the October 7 attack that Hamas launched against Israel in 2023.

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Stefanik had also appeared on Fox News "Hannity" on Monday night, where she discussed the administration's decision regarding funding for Harvard. 

In pointing out that the now former president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, was forced to resign, as were others, and blasting the Biden-Harris administration for "zero action to protect Jewish students on campuses and to hold these universities accountable," she also added that "President Trump correctly made the correct decision to defund these institutions."

Stefanik further explained just what it is that the administration has asked of Harvard. "If you look at what they required for Harvard, it was protection of Jewish students, it is making sure that we are getting rid of DEI, which by definition, is antisemitic, and instead, Harvard is acting more entitled than ever," she shared. "President Trump made the direct and correct decision to defund to the tune of over $2 billion these higher ed institutions that have fundamentally lost their way. U.S. taxpayer dollars should never be propping up antisemitism and the vast majority of the American people support President Trump and support the work that we are doing in Congress to hold these higher ed institutions accountable."

Especially if the institution's tax status is revoked, it appears that these institutions will be held accountable. 

Stefanik spoke more about taxpayers as well. "The vast majority of the American people do not want to prop up these institutions," she continued, also reminding that she herself graduated from Harvard, while making clear that "the achievement is maintaining my common sense and my conservatism and my strong values with which I was raised in and strong moral leadership."

She also spoke further about how higher education in general has lost its way. "There is so much opportunity across this country for the next generation, whether it's in the workforce, whether it's in this manufacturing renaissance that is going to happen under President Donald J. Trump, whether it's community colleges or trade schools, vocational programs. That is a pathway to success. Higher education has fundamentally lost its way, and it's increasingly out of touch, and the tuition rates go higher and higher. So we need to defund across the board, and President Trump is rightly holding these schools accountable," Stefanik added. 

On Monday night, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) also offered his suggestion that it was not only "Time to defund" Harvard, but "tax that $50 billion endowment," in a quoted repost of Harvard trying to explain away over X why they weren't going to comply with the Trump administration. As the university tried to claim, they worry about having to "surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights" and about being "taken over by the federal government."

Gill also reposted Christopher Rufo, who, in a Monday post reminded that Harvard is free to to have that "independence" it so desires if it foregoes federal funds, just as Hillsdale College has done.