President Donald Trump said in a social media post last week that his administration will issue the revocation.
The head of Harvard University responded to a new warning from President Donald Trump to remove the Ivy League college’s tax-exempt status amid a protracted battle between Ivy League colleges and the administration.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on May 2, Harvard President Alan Garber said he believes it would be “highly illegal” for the administration to remove the tax exempt status and that it would prove “destructive” for the university.
There would have to be “some reasoning that we have not been exposed to that would justify this dramatic move,” he told the outlet, adding that “tax-exempt status is granted to educational institutions to enable them to successfully carry out their mission of education, and for research universities, of research.”
Garber was responding to a Truth Social post issued by Trump that same day that said, “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” The president did not provide more details about the plan, including when the status would be revoked or why.
Some schools, religious organizations, charity groups, private foundations, and others can receive tax-exempt status if they meet 501(c)(3) nonprofit qualifications under the tax code established and enforced by the IRS.
The White House has threatened to pull funding from Ivy League schools over reports of anti-Semitism at campuses and for promoting discriminatory initiatives, among other measures. Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over funding that was blocked.
One Ivy League college, Columbia University, agreed to the Trump administration’s requests to overhaul its rules for public protests rather than risk billions of dollars in lost federal funds.
Trump previewed removing the university’s tax-exempt status in comments last month.
“Tax-exempt status, I mean, that’s a privilege. It’s really a privilege. And it’s been abused. By a lot more than Harvard, too,” he told reporters in the Oval Office, while also mentioning Princeton University and Columbia University, additional Ivy League schools. “It’s something that these schools really have to be very, very careful with.”
