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The Trump administration’s focus on Harvard University continued this week. The Department of Justice opened a new investigation into “whether Harvard violated federal civil rights law by using gifts from China-based sources to fund financial aid programs that favor foreign students,” per the Harvard Crimson.
“Every American student should have an equal opportunity to compete for college scholarships, grants, and other kinds of financial aid and benefits,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “Schools cannot take federal dollars and then turn around and accept money from foreign sources to give financial aid that deliberately excludes American citizens — doing so is illegal, and we will stop it wherever we find it.”
Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton said the school follows all disclosure laws and “does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin in allocating financial aid,” he said. Per the Associated Press, “Federal disclosures from Harvard show it has accepted $630 million from Chinese sources over a period of decades. Overall, it has reported about $4.5 billion in foreign funding.” American colleges and universities regularly accept donations from foreign donors.
There are two other lawsuits currently open against Harvard from the Justice Department, one regarding admissions records and another accusing the school of breaking civil rights law in its response to campus antisemitism.
