President Donald Trump said he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, blasting the Ivy League institution as “Strongly Antisemitic” and accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students on campus.
In a late-night series of posts on Truth Social Monday, Trump said Harvard should be facing criminal charges, not just civil penalties, for what he described as the university’s inability — or refusal — to rein in antisemitism.
Trump also took aim at The New York Times, which reported earlier that he had “backtracked” in his administration’s dispute with Harvard.
According to the Times, Trump had dropped his administration’s demand for a $200 million payment to the federal government “in hopes of finally resolving the administration’s conflicts with the university, according to four people briefed on the matter.”
Trump called that reporting “completely wrong.”
He accused the paper of being run by “fraudsters” who intentionally misrepresent him — something he said the public will soon recognize as he pursues a $15 billion lawsuit against the newspaper.
“I hereby demand that the morons that run (into the ground!) the Times change their story, immediately,” Trump posted.
That message came roughly 40 minutes after Trump unleashed a separate post sharply criticizing Harvard itself.
He said the university has been “behaving very badly” and has been feeding “nonsense” to the Times for some time. Trump accused Harvard of attempting to escape accountability by offering superficial policy changes that failed to seriously address antisemitism on campus.
Here is the key section of Trump’s post:
“They wanted to do a convoluted job training concept, but it was turned down in that it was wholly inadequate and would not have been, in our opinion, successful. It was merely a way of Harvard getting out of a large cash settlement of more than 500 Million Dollars, a number that should be much higher for the serious and heinous illegalities that they have committed.”
Trump added:
“This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings. In any event, this case will continue until justice is served.”
The president also criticized Harvard President Dr. Alan Garber, saying:
“Dr. Alan Garber, the President of Harvard, has done a terrible job of rectifying a very bad situation for his institution and, more importantly, America itself. He was hired AFTER the antisemitism charges were brought — I wonder why???”
Trump concluded by announcing he is “now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages” from the university.
He also quoted the same New York Times report he had criticized, which said many Harvard employees believe the school has “no option but to eventually cut a deal.”
Trump’s comments follow a federal task force report last year that accused Harvard of “deliberate indifference” and “willful participation” in antisemitic harassment of students and faculty.
According to the administration, the university became a hotbed for anti-Israel protests and antisemitism following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel.
“This hostile environment includes harassing speech, threats, and intimidation targeting Jewish and Israeli students, including calls for genocide and murder,” the administration said in a June report. “The findings also extensively detail acts of physical intimidation and violence between students. This hostile environment denied, and continues to deny, students’ fundamental educational opportunities.”
Trump’s administration previously attempted to freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard over the allegations, but a federal judge blocked the move in September.
