Trump says he will cancel Harvard’s tax-free status
The Trump administration threatened to freeze $2 billion in federal funds after it disagreed with the list of requests from the administration.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has said he will take action to remove Harvard’s tax-free status and escalate the fight with one of the nation’s most prestigious universities.
“We’re going to take Harvard’s tax-free status, and that’s what they deserve!” Trump said in a post about Truth Social on the morning of May 2.
The move to use executive power to revoke Harvard’s nonprofit designation, a status held by the majority of Harvard’s nonprofit organization, is expected to be challenged in federal courts. The Internal Revenue Service grants federal tax exemptions in accordance with federal law.
Trump, who previously threatened to target Harvard’s tax-free status, has accused Harvard of being an “anti-Semitic, left and right facility.”
His administration in April said it had frozen more than $2 billion in federal funds for Ivy League Schools after Harvard leaders said they would not agree to a list of Trump administration’s requests, including mask bans and removal of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“There is no legal basis for rescinding Harvard’s tax-exempt status,” Harvard spokesman Jason Newton said in a statement. “Unprecedented actions like this will put our ability to carry out education missions at stake.”
Prior to Trump’s announcement, a group of Senate Democrats, including minority leaders Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to a representative Treasury inspector who wanted to investigate Trump’s plans to revoke Harvard’s nonprofit status.
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“For the IRS to gain direction from the president to target schools, hospitals, churches or other tax-free facilities is illegal and unconstitutional in retaliation for using their right of confidence,” says a letter signed by Oregon’s Ron Winkey Ed Markey.
By suing the Trump administration, Harvard accused the school of illegally threatening its “academic independence” and “passbreak research” in response to Trump’s fundraising freeze.
Trump has increasingly relied on elite universities to make punching bags. “It’s obvious that we’ll see the next chapter of the American story not written by Harvard Crimson,” Trump told University of Alabama alumni on May 1, referring to the name of the Harvard newspaper. “It will be written by you, Crimson Tide.”
Like many other nonprofit universities, Harvard is exempt from federal and state income taxes. While the president does not necessarily have the one-sided authority to revoke an organization’s tax-free status, there is a process by which the IRS can withdraw its non-commercial status. The bill introduced by Republicans in Congress last year would give the president and the Treasury Secretary more latitudes to target university tax exemptions.
Harvard receives about $9 billion a year from the federal government, with $7 billion being sent to 11 Harvard hospitals. A substantial amount of federal funding, $686 million in 2024, also supports research and innovation at Harvard University.
The university also has a $53.2 billion contribution, and is by far the largest school in any US, with about 80% of its own holding certain limits.
Newton said revoking Harvard’s tax-free status would “have reduced financial aid for students, abandoned critical medical research programs and lost opportunities for innovation.”
“The wider and wider use of this instrument will have significant consequences for the future of higher education in America,” Newton added.
Contribution: Zac Shelmele. Reach Joey Garrison with X @joeygarrison.
(This story has been updated with more information.)