Trump Demands Harvard Pay $1 Billion

President Donald Trump has demanded Harvard University pay the federal government $1 billion, escalating a high profile, almost year-long fight over alleged campus antisemitism.

The demand, posted on Truth Social late Monday night, comes as Harvard is locked in negotiations with the Trump administration and landed just six hours after The New York Times reported that the federal government had backed off demands for a financial penalty. The Trump administration had reportedly sought up to $200 million from Harvard, which has resisted settling with the federal government as some Ivy league peers and other institutions have done. While others reached agreements, Harvard took Trump to court and won, so far fending off efforts to strip its federal research funding and restrict its ability to host international students, among other attacks.

Late Monday, Trump disputed the reporting by The New York Times.

“Strongly Antisemitic Harvard University has been feeding a lot of “nonsense” to The Failing New York Times. Harvard has been, for a long time, behaving very badly!,” Trump wrote online.

The president claimed that Harvard “wanted to do a convoluted job training concept” in lieu of a monetary settlement but that proposal “was turned down” and “wholly inadequate.” He added a financial penalty was needed due to “serious and heinous illegalities that they have committed.”

Now, Trump has upped the ante on a potential settlement deal.

“We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University,” Trump wrote in the first of two posts disputing the coverage. (Trump demanded The New York Times change its reporting in a second post on Truth Social.)

The New York Times has reported since July that a settlement with Harvard was imminent, a claim that officials such as Education Secretary Linda McMahon have echoed in public for months. But Trump’s latest billion-dollar demand suggests any such deal remains out of reach.

Initial coverage indicated that Harvard was willing to pay up to $500 million to reset its relationship with the federal government, specifically directing those funds toward workforce programs. The Trump administration has reached settlements with six other institutions: the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Brown University, the University of Virginia, Cornell University, and Northwestern University. Among universities that settled, Brown struck a deal to steer $50 million to workforce development programs in Rhode Island, where it is located. In a related settlement, Cornell agreed to invest $30 million in agricultural research.

Trump also took aim at Harvard President Alan Garber in Monday’s late-night-posting spree.

“Dr. Alan Garber, the President of Harvard, has done a terrible job of rectifying a very bad situation for his institution and, more importantly, America, itself. He was hired AFTER the antisemitism charges were brought – I wonder why???,” Trump wrote on social media.

Garber took over in an interim capacity in early 2024 after then-president Claudine Gay stepped down amid a public relations firestorm driven by both a damaging performance at a Congressional hearing on campus antisemitism and swirling plagiarism allegations. Harvard lifted Garber’s interim tag in August 2024 and extended his term of service late last year.

Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Tuesday morning.