The Trump administration intends to ask all federal agencies to seek ways to end their contracts — worth an estimated $100 million — with Harvard University, a senior administration official told NBC News on Tuesday.
“GSA will send a letter to federal agencies today asking them to identify any contracts with Harvard, and whether they can be canceled or redirected elsewhere,” the senior official said, referring to the General Services Administration.
The development was first reported by The New York Times.
The proposed cuts mark the latest escalation in a monthslong fight between the Trump administration and the nation’s oldest — and arguably most prestigious — university.
A copy of the letter, obtained by NBC News, instructs agencies to respond to the GSA with a list of contracts they have terminated with the university by June 6.
“Going forward, we also encourage your agency to seek alternative vendors for future services where you had previously considered Harvard,” reads the letter, signed by John Gruenbaum, the commissioner of the GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service.
Gruenbaum described the administration’s actions as bolstering civil rights. He accused Harvard of defying a Supreme Court ruling that banned considering race in its admissions process and of “ongoing inaction” over the harassment of its Jewish students.
A separate administration official confirmed to NBC News that roughly 30 contracts will be under review.
According to the official, they include a $39,000 contract for graduate student research services, a $50,000 contract with the National Institutes of Health to investigate the effects of coffee drinking, and a $523,000 contract to conduct research on energy drinks.
Harvard did not immediately return a request for comment.
The directive comes a day after Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he was considering taking $3 billion in grant money away from what he called “a very anti-Semitic” Harvard, and giving the funds to trade schools instead.
Harvard President Alan Garber responded to Trump’s post in a Tuesday interview with NPR, raising concerns about how the cuts will affect research that he says benefits the country.
“I’m less concerned about whether it goes to a trade school or if it goes to some other project, like working on highways,” he said. “What the real question is, how much value does the federal government get from its expenditures on research? “
“There is a lot of actual research demonstrating the returns to the American people have been enormous,” he added.
The feud between the government and Harvard largely stems from the university’s refusal to comply with sweeping demands from the Trump administration’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism last month. The task force sought to review who Harvard can admit or hire and subject its faculty to a government audit.
In response, the administration stripped the university of $2 billion in federal research funding.
The administration also sought to block Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students last week, an effort that a federal judge temporarily halted after the university sued. A hearing on whether the judge’s order should be extended is set for Thursday.
If the administration’s effort is successful, Harvard’s foreign students, who make up roughly a fourth of the university’s student body, would lose their legal status to stay in the United States or would have to transfer to a different university.
