Obama Speaks Out in Support of Harvard After Trump Slashes $2bn in Grants

Barack Obama has come out in support of Harvard after the Trump administration elected to cut $2bn (£1.5bn) of its federal grants after the Ivy League school in Massachusetts rejected what it said was an attempt at "government regulation" of the university.

- Edward Helmore

Meanwhile, the faculty at Yale University, another prominent Ivy League institution, has asked its leadership "to resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and self-governance".

A statement from Obama, the US president from 2009 to 2017, says: "Harvard has set an example for other higher ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect.

Let's hope other institutions follow suit."

The standoff between some of the US's most prestigious universities and the federal government deepened overnight on Monday after Harvard rejected demands by Donald Trump's administration, which the president has claimed are an effort to curb antisemitism on campus.

Many educators see the demands as a thinly veiled effort to more broadly curb academic freedoms.

"No government - regardless of which party is in power - should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," Harvard's president, Alan Garber, said.