This announcement follows months of legal battles between the president and America’s oldest university.
President Donald Trump said on social media on June 20 that he has been talking with Harvard University officials regarding their “large-scale improprieties” and expects to announce a historic deal soon.
“They have acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations, and appear to commit to doing what is right,” he wrote on Truth Social, noting that a “mindbogglingly” historic settlement with the Ivy League institution will be announced within “the next week or so.”
The battle began earlier this year following Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism and DEI initiatives in higher education. The president froze billions in federal funding for medical research, prompting a lawsuit from Harvard, which called the move unconstitutional and a violation of free speech.
Harvard’s April 21 lawsuit says the medical research grants that the Trump administration froze have no connection to the harassment of Jewish students, and that First Amendment free speech protections do not permit the government to “interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its vision of ideological balance.”
The president has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status. In addition, he moved to end the university’s visa program for international students, resulting in an additional lawsuit. A federal judge blocked that executive action.
Trump previously issued a proclamation that stated that the Chinese Communist Party and other U.S. adversaries are trying to “take advantage of American higher education by exploiting the student visa program for improper purposes and by using visiting students to collect information at elite universities in the United States.”
His June 20 social media post did not address any of those disputes specifically.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Harvard for comment.
The university’s website did not have a statement in response to the president’s announcement or an update on any of the disputes.
