New York: US President Donald Trump has said that Harvard University would lose its tax-exempt status, repeating his intent to enlist the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in his feud with the university and upend its finances.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump wrote on Friday on social media.
However, an administration official said the President’s social-media post wasn’t a formal directive to the IRS to take action, according to The Wall Street Journal. Trump’s comment comes after Harvard filed a lawsuit late last month against the administration, setting up a legal showdown between America’s most prominent university and the White House, Xinhua news agency reported.
The suit argues that the government has violated the university’s constitutional rights by freezing billions of dollars in federal funding and imperiling its academic independence.
Trump froze more that $2 billion in federal funds to Harvard, which prompted the university to sue, after it refused to institute policy changes, including the discontinuation of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Earlier this week, Harvard announced it is renaming its “Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging” to “Community and Campus Life”.
The university also said it would no longer host or fund affinity group celebrations during commencement, according to The Harvard Crimson.
The school on Tuesday released a pair of internal reports: one on how anti-semitism and anti-Israeli bias are handled on campus, and another on anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias. A White House official on Wednesday described the moves as “positive,” but signalled that the university needs to do more to crack down on what it sees as anti-Israel bias on campus.
White House Spokesperson Harrison Fields said that any forthcoming IRS actions were independent of the President and that any audit or investigations were initiated before Trump’s post. Representatives for the Internal Revenue Service did not respond to questions on Friday. (IANS)
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