Former President Barack Obama welcomes the decision of the Harvard University to reject the White House requests to change his policy or lose his federal money, in his first post on social media to criticize Trump’s administration from at least a day of inauguration.
President Donald Trump freezes more than $ 2 billion (1.5 billion pounds) of federal funding for Harvard, as this would not change his employment, reception and teaching practice, which his administration said they were key to combating anti -Semitism in campus.
Obama, Harvard Alum, frozen freezing as “illegal and ham”.
He urged other institutions to follow Harvard leadership without recognizing Trump’s requests.
“Harvard has given an example for other institutions with higher means-in-law, and an attempt to attempt to suffocate academic freedom, at the same time taking concrete steps to ensure that all students at Harvard can benefit from an intellectual research environment, strict discussion and mutual respect,” Obama wrote on social media.
Former president, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991, rarely criticized or reprimanded government officers or government policies at social media since leaving the White House almost ten years ago. His posts usually took out Trump’s challenger, then President Kamal Harris, and from the day of the inauguration, he mostly announced tribute, personal messages and thinking about sports.
Obama is one of the handfuls of American political figures and university officials who now speak against the attempts of Trump’s administration to reshape major universities in the country, pressing to change what they teach and to whom they employ and threatens to reduce the financing of research.
Hundreds of members of the Faculty at Yale University published a letter expressing their support to Harvard’s decision to reject the demands of Trump’s administration.
“We stand together at the intersection,” the letter states. “US universities face extraordinary attacks that threaten the basic principles of a democratic society, including free expression, associations and academic freedom. We write as a faculty, to ask you to stand with us now.”
Many US universities get some kind of federal financing that are generally labeled scientific research in areas such as drug development.
Since Trump returned to duty in January, elite institutions like Stanford University had to freeze employment and reduce budgets in the face of federal resources.
Some of the funds stopped at the universities to take the steps for which Trump’s administration says he would fight anti -Semitism. Trump accused them of failing to protect Jewish students during last year’s protests at the Campus against the Gaza war and American support to Israel.
Stanford President Jonathan Levin and Provinc Jenny Martinez praised Harvard on Tuesday that “universities should be addressed by legitimate criticisms with humility and openness.”
“But a way to have a constructive change has not destroyed the ability of a nation for scientific research or a government that assumes a private institution command,” they wrote.
While Columbia University has ceded some of Trump’s requests Earlier this month, Harvard became the first major University to take the opposite approach.
“No Government – no matter what the party is in power – should not dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can recognize and hire, and what areas of study and investigation,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement on Monday.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) watched on Harvard on Monday and also rejected Trump administration demands.
Despite the criticism, Trump stands quickly. On Tuesday, he performed another strike against Harvard, threatening to revoke his status exempt from taxes.
Universities, as well as many charities and religious groups, are exempted from the payment of federal income tax. This valuable tax relief, however, can be removed if groups are involved in political activities or move away from their above purposes.