Trump Took Aim at Harvard. His Facts Sometimes Missed the Mark.

Updated May 27, 2025 at 3:53 p.m.

Donald Trump has spent the past two days using his presidential bully pulpit to light into Harvard.

In posts on his social media platform, Truth Social, and while talking to reporters on Sunday, the president doubled down on claims that the University had been co-opted by anti-American radicals.

His most recent comments focused on Harvard’s decision to withhold some requested documents from the Department of Homeland Security, then sue when the DHS revoked its authorization to enroll international students.

But many of Trump’s claims were misleading, unverified, or untrue.

He repeatedly asserted that Harvard has withheld the names and countries of origin of its international students. While speaking to reporters on the tarmac in Morristown, New Jersey, he asserted “they refuse to tell us who the people are.”

But the federal government already has access to that information. Schools that are certified under the Student Exchange and Visitor Program — the status the DHS attempted to strip from Harvard — must report extensive records to the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System database, including names, places of birth, and countries of origin.

Instead, the dispute between Harvard and the DHS centered on the extent of the records it was required to provide on students’ involvement in violence, threats, and protest activities. Harvard announced on April 30 that it had provided the DHS with the information that was “required by law” by the initial deadline that day.

But the DHS followed up, alleging Harvard’s response was incomplete. Harvard initially pushed back on the DHS’ request for visa holders’ “known illegal activity,” “known dangerous or violent activity,” “known threats to other students or university personnel,” and “known deprivation of rights” of peers and University employees.

Then, in May, Harvard agreed to provide the DHS with additional information in response. That included three incidents involving international students, which they said were the only incidents in the “relevant timeframe” that were responsive to the department’s request.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s first letter to Harvard did not specify the period included in the DHS’ request, but the most recent DHS letter asks for information from the past five years.

Trump also repeated common Republican claims that international students are antisemitic, anti-American, or unruly, describing them in one Truth Social post as “radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all” who “should not be let back into our Country.”

Some international students, alongside their American peers, have led or participated in pro-Palestine activism at Harvard — which Trump and his administration have labeled as antisemitic and disruptive.

But Harvard’s submission to the DHS, if it was comprehensive, suggests the rate at which international students engage in criminal activity or face disciplinary action for disruptive conduct is vanishingly low.

The University claimed that during the period requested by the DHS, they were not aware of any criminal convictions involving international students across all of Harvard’s schools. Instead, Harvard reported three internal disciplinary cases unconnected to criminal proceedings.

One involved a student who was “withdrawn for inappropriate social behavior involving physical violence, a dangerous weapon (portable speaker), and drugs and alcohol,” and two student athletes who were placed on probation “for inappropriate social behavior involving alcohol.”

Trump also asserted in a Sunday Truth Social post that foreign countries “pay NOTHING toward their student’s education.” When talking to reporters in New Jersey on Monday, claiming that “no foreign government contributes money to Harvard.”

In fact, Harvard has received more than $151 million from foreign governments between January 2020 and October 2024. Many of the exchanges come in the form of contracts — which include tuition payments for executive education programs.

Republicans themselves have criticized Harvard for receiving funding from foreign governments. In an April 17 letter, Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) and Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) suggested Harvard’s foreign funding was tied to rising antisemitism.

Trump also wrote that he is “considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land.” His administration has already cut more than $2.7 billion from Harvard’s multi-year federal commitments. It was not clear whether Trump was referring to new cuts.

But that money mostly comes from agencies that provide research funding to universities, which cannot simply be redirected to trade schools that do not conduct research. There is no indication that the nearly $3 billion Harvard has lost so far has been used to support trade schools.

Trump — who once ran his own unaccredited for-profit university — has been an advocate of vocational training, and he has proposed an “American Academy” funded with taxes on private university endowments.

The House of Representatives recently advanced a bill that would hike the tax rate on Harvard’s endowment returns to 21 percent — up from its current rate of 1.4 percent. But the administration has not established any public plans for the American Academy to date.

Trump’s posts also contained a sequence of numerical errors. On two separate occasions, he asserted that 31 percent of Harvard’s student body is international. According to Harvard materials, 27.2 percent of the University’s current student body are international students — the highest level of international enrollment in recent history.

And on Sunday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Harvard has $52,000,000,” and should use that money to fund their operations rather than using the money granted to the University by the federal government. He missed three zeros — Harvard’s endowment is close to $52 billion.

The second claim is more complicated. Republicans, including Trump, have frequently suggested that Harvard dip into its endowment instead of drawing on federal funds. Supporters of the University’s defiance have likewise suggested that Harvard should use endowment money to weather Trump’s withdrawal of federal research dollars.

But the endowment is not simply a pile of cash. It’s an investment — meaning that withdrawing money now prevents it from accruing interest and supporting Harvard in the future. And more than 80 percent of Harvard’s endowment is tied up in restricted funds, which can only go to certain projects under conditions imposed by their donors.

Trump also accused Harvard on Truth Social of having “shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!).”

Harvard didn’t engage in any unusual or illegal maneuvering around the filing of its complaints. But it did file its first lawsuit — over the Trump administration’s $2.2 billion funding freeze — as a related case to the American Association of University Professors. That all but guaranteed the case would be heard by Judge Allison D. Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee who ruled in favor of Harvard in a 2019 affirmative action case.

The second suit, over the DHS order, will also be heard by Burroughs.

Harvard is also favored, at least at the trial court level, by its geography. Most of the bench in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts consists of Democratic presidents’ appointees. If either case makes it to the Supreme Court, it will be heard by a bench of mostly conservative-leaning justices.

Trump’s latest invectives against Harvard represent an escalation of the punitive interest he has taken in the University since taking office. He has suggested on several occasions that he will instruct the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and he told his sons to fire a lawyer from his family business for representing Harvard in court.

— Staff writer Abigail S. Gerstein can be reached at abigail.gerstein@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @abbysgerstein.

—Staff writer Graham W. Lee can be reached at graham.lee@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @grahamwonlee.