In an apparent act of retaliation for the university refusing to give into President Donald Trump’s demands, his administration has directed the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, CNN and The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
People familiar with the situation told the outlets that a final decision on Trump’s directive is imminent. Though the president can make requests with the IRS, the agency has sole authority to investigate and change tax-exempt statuses, which are given to charitable, religious, educational and social welfare organizations.
The reported request went to the IRS’s acting chief counsel Andrew De Mello, who stepped into the role earlier this month after his predecessor reportedly resigned over an IRS deal with the Trump administration to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, did not immediately respond to requests about the reports.
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The request to the IRS comes days after the private university announced that despite being threatened with the withholding of $9 billion in federal grants, it would not make a deal with the Trump administration, which has targeted Harvard and other universities in what it claims is an investigation into “anti-semitism” on campus, and diversity, equity and inclusion practices (DEI).
“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” the school’s lawyers, Robert Hur and William Burck, wrote to Trump administration officials. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government. Accordingly, Harvard will not accept the government’s terms as an agreement in principle.”
Changes Trump demanded at America’s oldest university included torpedoing all DEI programs, cutting back on foreign student admissions, requiring “viewpoint” diversity in all programs, banning certain student groups and purging departments of staff critical of Israel.
Trump railed against Harvard on social media earlier Wednesday and threatened to cut its federal funding.
“Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders,’” he wrote.
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“Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds,” he continued.