Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status to Be Revoked, Trump Says
- snitzoid
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
This pretty much sums it up. English Bob is Harvard and Little Bill Daggett plays Lord Voldemort.
For those who need intellectual aid-He's going to beat the living sheet out of these guys (make an example out of them) just like Eastwood's evil sheriff. I can't watch.
Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status to Be Revoked, Trump Says
The Ivy League school is battling the administration over the freezing of billions in federal funding
By Gareth Vipers and Richard Rubin
Updated May 2, 2025 8:18 am ET
President Trump said Harvard University’s tax exemption would be revoked.
Harvard filed a federal lawsuit, arguing the government violated its constitutional rights.
Trump has targeted universities, investigating schools that he says have failed to protect Jewish students.
President Trump said he would revoke Harvard University’s tax exemption, the latest swipe in the administration’s recent campaign against the Ivy League school.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Friday.
The comment comes after Harvard filed a federal lawsuit late last month against the Trump administration. The suit argues the government has violated the university’s constitutional rights by freezing billions of dollars in federal funding and imperiling its academic independence.
Trump has targeted Harvard and other top universities, pausing or freezing billions of dollars in federal grants and contracts. A new government task force says it is investigating schools that the administration deems has failed to adequately protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian protests that disrupted campuses last year. It is also seeking to push Harvard to incorporate a broader diversity of ideas on its campus.
Trump’s repeated comments about Harvard’s tax-exempt status breach a norm that attempts to insulate political officials from decisions about specific taxpayers.
The tax code prohibits the president and other senior officials from directly or indirectly asking the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or stop an audit or other investigations. After earlier Trump comments, the White House had said that any decisions to investigate universities’ tax-exempt status were happening independent of the president and that any inquiries started before the president’s statements.
Under the tax code, prohibited political interference in audits is a crime punishable with a fine and prison time. But it would also presumably require federal prosecutors to bring a case, and Supreme Court decisions about executive power and presidential immunity could be high bars to clear.
Harvard has 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status as an educational institution, which means that it doesn’t pay income taxes on any net earnings and that its donors can get income-tax deductions.
That status can be revoked after an audit that examines whether a tax-exempt entity violates the rules.
It isn’t clear what argument the administration could make against Harvard. One possibility is that its admissions policies or approach to antisemitism violate fundamental public policy. That’s the standard that the Supreme Court set more than 40 years ago, when it upheld the IRS’s decision to revoke the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University over the school’s racially discriminatory policies.
Harvard would be able to challenge any revocation of its tax-exempt status in court.
Updates to come as news develops.
Write to Gareth Vipers at gareth.vipers@wsj.com and Richard Rubin at richard.rubin@wsj.com