Jewish Harvard students speak out after university sues Trump admin over funding freeze

Harvard students and alumni are speaking out after the university announced it is suing the Trump administration rather than comply with its demands to address antisemitism on its campus.

"The government withheld funds from racist schools that refused to integrate. The Obama administration repeatedly threatened to withhold federal funds to sexist schools that refused to combat sexual assault. The Trump Administration's efforts are in no way an unprecedented threat on higher education. Should Harvard still like to enjoy American taxpayer money, they can simply choose to comply with federal law at any point," Harvard student Shabbos Kestenbaum told Fox News Digital. 

Kestenbaum is currently suing the Ivy League university, alleging the school failed to properly address complaints of antisemitism and threats of violence directed at him. Harvard's financial and systems coordinator Gustavo Espada allegedly posted online that Kestenbaum needed to "watch [his] back" and that he was "coming for much more than blood." 

HARVARD SUES TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OVER 'UNLAWFUL' MULTIBILLION DOLLAR BUDGET CUTS

Harvard has become a flashpoint in the nationwide crisis of antisemitism that swept college campuses across the United States following Hamas' barbaric terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, which saw more Jews killed on any single day since the Holocaust.

Former Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned from her post in January 2024, after accusations of plagiarism and her disastrous testimony to the House Education Committee where she refused to say whether calls to commit genocide against Jews were against the school’s code of conduct, claiming it "depends on the context." 

Trump administration antisemitism taskforce member Sean Keveney sent a letter to Harvard on April 11 with a list of demands to address antisemitism, racial bias and viewpoint discrimination that the school felt was a bridge too far. The administration later claimed the letter had been sent in error, the New York Times reported. 

Among the changes the Trump administration was seeking in the letter was for Harvard to engage in merit-based hiring and admissions, better enforce its student disciplinary policies, reform programs with "egregious records of antisemitism" and end all DEI policies. 

After Harvard publicly announced it would not acquiesce to Trump’s demands, the administration froze $2.2 billion in federal funding, threatened to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status and eyed another $1 billion in funding freezes.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CONTINUES TO PRESS HARVARD TO DELIVER ANTISEMITISM REPORT AFTER DELAY

Harvard filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration Monday, accusing the White House of threatening its academic independence as part of a "pressure campaign." The lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of attempting to "micromanage" university decisions, and violating Harvard's first amendment rights by imposing "view-point based conditions" on federal funding. 

"The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting. Research that the government has put in jeopardy includes efforts to improve the prospects of children who survive cancer, to understand at the molecular level how cancer spreads throughout the body, to predict the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield," Harvard President Alan M. Garber said in a statement about the suit. 

A Jewish sophomore at Harvard expressed ambivalence to Fox News Digital about his university’s war with the White House. While the student says he doesn’t support the Trump administration’s funding cuts, he believes that "ball remains in Harvard’s court." He called on his school to employ "common-sense reforms" to address antisemitism and end the pervasive anti-Israel atmosphere at the school.

StandWithUs, an organization dedicated to combating antisemitism on college campuses, claimed that Trump was well within his rights to condition funding to the university.

"Tax exemption and federal funding are privileges, not rights. While there are certainly parameters that guide the federal government’s actions in these matters, legitimate bases do exist for revoking a university’s tax-exempt status," StandWithUs legal policy director Carly Gammill told Fox News Digital.

Former Harvard Hillel president and current Harvard senior Jacob Miller said he doubts the Trump administration will be able to fix the problem of antisemitism on its campus, and praised Garber for standing up to the administration’s demands.

"I’m glad Garber is resisting Trump’s demands. While antisemitism certainly exists at Harvard, it is hard to see how the White House’s latest list of demands will solve what is largely a cultural issue at our school," Miller said. 

Israeli entrepreneur Matan Yaffe, who attended the Kennedy School of Government in 2022 – where he says he encountered antisemitic and anti-Israel bias from his professor and classmates alike – welcomed the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on antisemitism at the Ivy League school.

"After personally taking Harvard to court over antisemitism and reaching a landmark settlement, I believe any effort to hold the university accountable is both necessary and long overdue. President Trump’s pressure campaign is highlighting the simple truth: elite institutions cannot continue to tolerate hatred against Jews and expect public trust or public funding. This is not a partisan issue, it’s a moral one," Yaffe told Fox News Digital.