Harvard University has decided to go to war with the Trump administration for the dumbest reasons possible, and that's turning out to be a very poor choice. 

As RedState has reported on extensively, the Ivy League school has been one of several elite universities to coddle pro-Hamas activists on campus, allowing them to occupy public spaces and harass Jewish students with impunity. Harvard's former president, Claudine Gay, infamously went viral in 2024 during a congressional hearing for refusing to say whether calls for a "global intifada" and other genocidal phrases violated the school's policies. She eventually resigned in disgrace after an extensive plagiarism scandal arose.

ALSO SEE: Harvard Faces Legal Backlash for Ignoring Antisemitism on Campus 

Further, Harvard has doubled down on discriminatory admission policies despite a Supreme Court ruling barring universities from using race as a factor. By using subjective qualifiers like essays, the school has essentially done an end run around the law, continuing its DEI policies.

That led the Trump administration to threaten to pull Harvard's tax-exempt status, but there's another policy change that will be more immediate and far less likely to be overturned by some rogue, left-wing judge. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has announced that Harvard shouldn't even bother applying for federal grants in the future because they will be rejected.

BREAKING: Education Secretary Linda McMahon just sent a letter to Harvard's president telling them to "no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided."

"Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution" 🚨 pic.twitter.com/piR3mpm1Gy

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) May 5, 2025

For context, Harvard already has about $9.6 billion in current federal grant commitments. While the White House is working through various legal hurdles to cancel those, ceasing all future grants is going to make a huge dent in the university's bottom line going forward. And because that money hasn't already been promised, I'm not sure what reasoning a judge could use to force the administration to award open grants to Harvard over other schools that have applied. I'm not saying some radical lower court judge won't try to come up with something, but it's going to be much more difficult and likely to be overturned on appeal. 

What's so stupid about this is that all Harvard has to do is follow federal law regarding harassment and admission standards. They are going to lose possibly billions of dollars to protect radicals who would just as soon burn the campus to the ground over doing anything useful. But hey, if that's how they want to play it, have at it. I'm all for left-wing academia having to suffer the consequences of its woke nonsense.

Editor's Note: This article was updated post-publication for clarity.

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