Federal agencies are terminating US$450 million in grants to Harvard, on top of the US$2.2 billion in cuts unveiled last week, the department of health and human services said in a statement, citing a “dark problem” of discrimination at the school.

Harvard – one of the world’s top universities – has taken the Trump administration to court over what it calls an unlawful attempt to control aspects of the university’s operations.

The White House is cracking down on US universities on several fronts, justified as a reaction to what the administration says is uncontrolled antisemitism and a need to reverse diversity programs aimed at addressing historical oppression of minorities.

But in a letter Monday to education secretary Linda McMahon, Harvard president Alan Garber asserted that “we share common ground on a number of critical issues”.

Garber said the university had launched institution-wide reforms after “an extraordinarily painful year for our community” in the wake of the Oct 7, 2023 Hamas assault on Israel.

“The challenges of that academic year have led to meaningful reform and recommendations designed to eliminate antisemitism and other forms of hate from our campus,” Garber wrote.

But the Ivy League school was unable to change their grant status as a result in at least one case outlined in a legal filing yesterday.

According to the filing, in a grant funding termination letter alleging antisemitism in May from the national institutes of health, grant administrators wrote that they typically allow recipients to make fixes and reinstate funding, but there was “no corrective action possible here”.

While refuting claims that Harvard is aligned with any political party or ideology, Garber acknowledged a need for greater intellectual diversity on campus and said students were recruited based on “individuals and their unique characteristics” rather than race.

But yesterday’s statement from Trump’s task force to combat antisemitism lashed out at the university as “a breeding ground for virtue signalling and discrimination”.

The university’s own probe into campus dynamics found that Jewish students were subjected to pervasive insults, physical assault and intimidation, the statement said.

“Harvard, and its leadership group who are tainted by the egregious infractions under its watch, faces a steep, uphill battle to reclaim its legacy as a lawful institution and center of academic excellence,” it said.