Trump repeats that the government will revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status
Source: CNN US
Updated 8:55 AM EDT, Fri May 2, 2025
CNN — President Donald Trump says Harvard University will be stripped of its tax-exempt status, redoubling an extraordinary threat amid a broader chess match over free speech, political ideology and federal funding at the Ivy League school and across American academia. “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump posted Friday morning on Truth Social. Trump floated a trial balloon April 15 for the notion of removing Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and the Internal Revenue Service had been making plans to carry out the idea. CNN reached out Friday to the IRS for comment.
“There is no legal basis to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status,” a university spokesperson told CNN. “Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission.” Money for federal taxes would have to be taken away from other priorities and “would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation,” the spokesperson said Friday.
Harvard’s president has said the school “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.” Harvard has emerged as the Trump administration’s most high-profile foe after the White House’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism last month announced a freeze of more than $2 billion in its federal research funding. The university sued for release of the money, with a resolution unlikely until midsummer at the soonest.
The Trump administration also has threatened to revoke the university’s ability to host international students if it doesn’t submit to a long list of demands, including: eliminating its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, banning masks at campus protests, enacting merit-based hiring and admissions changes, turning over foreign students’ discipline records, and reducing the power held by faculty and administrators who are “more committed to activism than scholarship.” While the White House has said its aim is a crackdown on antisemitism following protests across US campuses over the war in Gaza, scholars and prominent Jewish organizations have expressed concern with its far-reaching attacks on Harvard.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/us/white-house-harvard-tax-status
Article updated.
Previous article -
CNN -- President Donald Trump says Harvard University will be stripped of its tax-exempt status, redoubling an extraordinary threat amid a broader chess match over free speech, political ideology and federal funding at the Ivy League school and across American academia. "We are going to be taking away Harvard's Tax Exempt Status. It's what they deserve!" Trump posted Friday morning on Truth Social. Trump floated a trial balloon April 15 for the notion of removing Harvard's tax-exempt status, and the Internal Revenue Service had been making plans to carry out the idea. CNN reached out Friday to the IRS and Harvard for comment.
Harvard's president has said the school "will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government." Harvard has emerged as the Trump administration's most high-profile foe after the White House's Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism last month announced a freeze of more than $2 billion in its federal research funding. The university sued for release of the money, with a resolution unlikely until midsummer at the soonest.
The Trump administration also has threatened to revoke the university's ability to host international students if it doesn't submit to a long list of demands, including: eliminating its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, banning masks at campus protests, enacting merit-based hiring and admissions changes, turning over foreign students' discipline records, and reducing the power held by faculty and administrators who are "more committed to activism than scholarship."
While the White House has said its aim is a crackdown on antisemitism following protests across US campuses over the war in Gaza, scholars and prominent Jewish organizations have expressed concern with its far-reaching attacks on Harvard.
Original article/headline -
Published 8:24 AM EDT, Fri May 2, 2025
CNN -- President Donald Trump says Harvard University will be stripped of its tax-exempt status, an extraordinary move amid a broader chess match over free speech, political ideology and federal funding at the Ivy League school and across American academia.
"We are going to be taking away Harvard's Tax Exempt Status. It's what they deserve!" Trump posted Friday morning on Truth Social.
Trump floated a trial balloon April 15 for the notion of removing Harvard's tax-exempt status, and the Internal Revenue Service had been making plans to carry out the idea.
Harvard's president has said the school "will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government."
This is a developing story and will be updated.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I think most institutions are continually "adjusting" their programs over time - they rarely stay "static" because laws change and the overall environment changes.
But the types of things 45 is literally doing is demanding institutions violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by claiming, without evidence, they are violating it themselves, and doing so based on a skewed interpretation of a ruling by the SCOTUS regarding "civil rights" in schools and everything else. 
This is yet another go-around with this nonsense in recent times since Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1) & (2) - one of the most famous going back to Bakke almost 50 years ago - Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which was further modified with the most recent (that Harvard itself was a party to) - Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (2023)
Then, we will see. Either way, he can still ignore it all as he has done so many times already. 
It is illegal for trump to threaten Harvard's tax exempt status
Link to tweet
The IRS cannot be weaponized to target political and ideological opponents — not under Nixon, not under Obama, and not under Trump.
Here is a link to the US Code section cited
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/7217