Trump HHS yanks $60M in federal funding from Harvard

(Daily Caller News Foundation) – The Department of Health and Human Services has canceled another $60 million in grants to Harvard University in the latest strike by the Trump administration against the Ivy League school.

The termination of $60 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-related funding was relayed in a May 19 letter obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Harvard has seen nearly $3 billion in federal grants and contracts frozen or canceled. The university sued the Trump administration on April 21, refusing to negotiate on a series of suggested reforms, including the dissolution of diversity, equity and inclusion, actions toward merit-based hiring, and disciplinary action against violent student groups.

The letter cites the findings of the Harvard Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, which concluded in an April 2025 report that some instructors had “mainstreamed and normalized what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias.”

“We are deeply concerned that these forms of bigotry are becoming increasingly normalized in academia, particularly within what seem to be highly politicized disciplines such as public health, medicine, and education,” the report states.

Granting CDC funding to an institution the administration views as discriminatory would be inconsistent with the federal agency’s mission, Jamie Legier, CDC’s chief grants management official, said in the May 19 letter.

“Grant dollars should only support institutions that comply with principles and laws of nondiscrimination,” Legier writes.

The letter said Harvard supported an environment that failed to “foster safe, equal, and healthy working and learning conditions conducive to high-quality research and free inquiry,” and, thus, the CDC grants were inconsistent with “championing the very best of American public health practice.”

“No corrective action is possible here,” the letter continues.

Harvard President Alan M. Garber and Harvard Provost John F. Manning announced on May 14 that the university would earmark $250 million from its central budget to compensate for the lost federal funding in addition to the $500 million the university typically allocates for research.

Harvard maintains a $53.3 billion endowment. Harvard says it can only spend a small fraction of the endowment each year because 80% of it is earmarked for a particular purpose by a donor. School officials also say “Harvard is obligated to preserve the purchasing power of these gifts by spending only a small fraction of their value each year.”

The university generated a surplus of $45 million on a revenue base of $6.5 billion in its most recent annual financial report.