Trump announces plan to sue Harvard for $1bn damages

United States President Donald Trump has said his administration will seek $1bn in damages from Harvard University.

The US president announced his plan to extract the money from the Ivy League school on social media late on Monday. The note, which did not explain the exact nature of his complaint, extends an already protracted legal battle with the university.

“We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard has been the most prominent target of Trump’s ire, as he has sought to wield authority over higher education.

He and his administration have railed against what they have termed “woke, socialist and anti-American” ideologies among students and professors, taking aim at pro-Palestine protests and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, among other topics.

The president’s latest outburst, which unfolded over several long posts, appeared to respond to an article published on Monday by The New York Times that reported that the Trump administration has dropped a demand for a $200m payment from the university.

In September, a federal judge ruled that the administration violated the law when it cancelled research grants worth more than $2.2bn to Harvard. The White House is now appealing the ruling and had sought the payment as part of a broader deal with the university.

Quoting four anonymous sources, The New York Times reported that Trump appeared to have conceded the $200m as negotiations with the university continue.

Although Trump did not directly address the figure in his latest posts, he wrote that “the Failing New York Times story was completely wrong concerning Harvard University” and that Harvard had been “feeding a lot of ‘nonsense’” to the publication.

“This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings,” he wrote. “In any event, this case will continue until justice is served.”

Trump also took issue with the article’s mention of his falling approval ratings amid a sluggish economy and federal agents’ killings of two US citizens amid a violent crackdown on immigration.

The paper “got it ALL WRONG, my Poll Numbers are Great!” he wrote.

Trump’s crusade against elite US universities has become a hallmark of his second term.

Shortly after taking office, the president signed various executive orders calling for government agencies to take actions against private institutions’ DEI programmes and increase actions to combat anti-Semitism, especially on campuses.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ), meanwhile, launched a task force to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses”, naming an initial list of 10 schools that it claimed had failed to protect Jewish students.

As Trump threatened to slash federal funding, several universities yielded to his demands.

Columbia University agreed to ban face masks, allow campus police to arrest students, and install a new administrator to oversee its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department and the Center for Palestine Studies.

Brown University said it would pay $50m to workforce training programmes in Rhode Island to restore its funding.