The federal government is slashing $450 million in grant funding to Harvard University, adding on to the $2.2 billion that has already been cut, according to a May 13 statement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The decision to revoke further funding stems in part from recent accusations from the Trump administration that the Harvard Law Review discriminated against white applicants when choosing which articles to publish and members to admit. The new statement from the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism also cites the Law Review’s granting of a $65,000 fellowship to a student who had previously faced assault charges after a confrontation at a campus protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza in October 2023.
“There is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus, and by prioritizing appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school's claim to taxpayer support,” the task force wrote May 13, adding that eight federal agencies across the government are terminating about $450 million more in grants to Harvard.
After receiving notice on May 6 that the National Institutes of Health was axing $2.2 billion in research funding to the university, Harvard said it later received notices of additional grant terminations from the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to a May 13 court filing (PDF). The amended filing is related to a lawsuit in which Harvard is challenging the Trump administration over the initial cuts.
Harvard has previously said that losing the $2.2 billion will imperil research on cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases and more.
A federal statement on the newest cuts was signed by Josh Gruenbaum, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service; Sean Keveney, acting general counsel for HHS; and Thomas Wheeler, acting general counsel for the Department of Education.
An HHS spokesperson declined to say on the record whether HHS funds are affected by the new cuts.
In mid-April, the Trump administration asked Harvard to implement extensive changes in order to avoid having funding terminated. This included reducing the power of students and untenured faculty in university governance, reporting international students who are “supportive of terrorism” to the government and bringing in an external group to audit programs accused of antisemitism. Harvard refused, prompting the May 6 funding termination.
The newest round of cuts comes as tumult surrounding biomedical research and health in the U.S. reaches a fever pitch. Trump has proposed drastically reducing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget by about $18 million and shrinking its 27 centers down to five, and a recent study found that the NIH under Trump terminated $1.8 billion in grant funding in just 40 days.
The HHS as a whole has faced massive layoffs that are being challenged in court, while Trump’s recent signing of a vague "most favored nation" executive order to dramatically cut drug prices has the pharma industry on edge.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the president’s allies on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have unveiled a budget reconciliation bill that includes steep cuts to Medicaid. If passed, the cuts would likely lead to 8.6 million people becoming uninsured by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:45 a.m. ET on May 14 to include information from Harvard's amended legal filing on which federal agencies have terminated grants.