US President Donald Trump has said that Harvard University is going to lose its tax exempt status, indicating that the school may lose its a prestigious position that has allowed it to pay lower levies on its revenue under classification for educational institutions.
Donald Trump made the announcement in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve,” he said, without elaborating further or sharing any details.
Donald Trump posted the statement on social media after weeks of warning to launch an Internal Revenue Service review of the Ivy League’s tax-free treatment.
Since taking office in January, Trump has targeted top universities in the US by freezing federal funding, launching investigations, revoking student visas and making other demands, saying higher education has been gripped by antisemitic, anti-American, Marxist and “radical left” ideologies.
Harvard has pushed back, suing the administration over the halted US research funding and other demands, and joining more than 200 university and college presidents in protesting Trump's higher education policies.
Donald Trump signed an executive order that aims to cut funding to news outlets NPR and PBS, the White House said, marking the US president's latest attempt to use federal funding as leverage against institutions he does not view favourably.
The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes funding to PBS and NPR stations, to "cease direct funding" to them, according to the order's text released by the White House late on Thursday. It labeled the news outlets as partisan and biased.
"The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding," the order says.
Both NPR and PBS have previously said that Trump's effort to cut their funding would disrupt essential media service and have a "devastating impact" on Americans who rely on them for credible local and national news, including during emergency situations.
The Trump administration has labelled multiple institutions in academia and the media industry - from Harvard and Columbia universities to NPR and PBS - as being leftist, Marxist, biased and woke, and threatened funding cuts. Human rights advocates have raised concerns over free speech and academic freedom.
(With Reuters inputs)
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