Obama urges other universities to defy federal attempts to ‘stifle academic freedom’ after Harvard funding freeze
Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog.
Former US president Barack Obama has condemned the education department for freezing $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University after the elite college rejected a list of demands from the White House.
In some of his most vocal criticism of this Trump administration, Obama praised Harvard, the country’s oldest university, for setting an example for other higher education institutions to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope other institutions follow suit.
His comments came after Harvard decided to fight the White House’s demands that it crack down on alleged antisemitism and civil rights violations. It is the first major US university to defy pressure from the White House to change its policies.
In a letter to Harvard on Friday, the administration called for broad government and leadership reforms, a requirement that Harvard institute what it calls “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies as well as conduct an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity.
The demands, which are an update from an earlier letter, also call for a ban on face masks, which appeared to target pro-Palestinian protesters; close its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which it says teach students and staff “to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes”; and pressured the university to stop recognizing or funding “any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment”.
The administration also demanded that Harvard cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
Harvard’s president said in a letter that the university would not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming and to limit student protests in exchange for its federal funding.
“No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Alan Garber, the university president, wrote, adding that Harvard had taken extensive reforms to address antisemitism.
The department of education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination”. It came after protests against Israel’s war on Gaza were put on across campuses last year, demonstrations that many Republicans framed as antisemitic.
Harvard’s response to the White House’s demands was in sharp contrast to the approach taken by Columbia University, the epicentre of last year’s protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The Trump administration cut $400m in grants to the private New York school, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment. The school caved in to demands and responded by agreeing to reform student disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to expand its security team.
Stay with us throughout the day as we have more reaction to this story and many others.
Key events
Trump officials step up defiance over man wrongly deported to El Salvador
Hugo Lowell
Hugo Lowell is a reporter in the Washington bureau of the Guardian covering Donald Trump and the Justice Department
The Trump administration on Monday misrepresented a US supreme court decision that compelled it to return a man wrongly deported to El Salvador, using tortured readings of the order to justify taking no actions to secure his release.
The supreme court last week unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego García, who was supposed to have been protected from deportation to El Salvador regardless of whether he was a member of the MS-13 gang.
But at an Oval Office meeting between Trump and El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, Trump deferred to officials who gave extraordinary readings of the supreme court order and claimed the US was powerless to return Abrego García to US soil.
“The ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador’s sole discretion was sent back to our country, we could deport him a second time,” said Trump’s policy chief Stephen Miller, about an order that, in fact, upheld a lower court’s directive to return Abrego García…
The remarks at the Oval Office meeting marked an escalation in the Trump administration’s attempts to claim uncertainty with court orders to avoid having to take actions it dislikes. In Abrego García’s case, officials appeared to manufacture uncertainty in particularly blatant fashion.
And the fact that the US is paying El Salvador to detain deportees it sends to the notorious Cecot prison undercut the notion that the administration lacked the power to return Abrego García into US custody.
The case started when Abrego García was detained by police in 2019 in Maryland, outside a Home Depot, with several other men, and asked about a murder. He denied knowledge of a crime and repeatedly denied that he was part of a gang.
Abrego García was subsequently put in immigration proceedings, where officials argued they believed he was part of the MS-13 gang in New York based on his Chicago Bulls gear and on the word of a confidential informant.
The case went before a US immigration judge, who suggested that Abrego García could be a member of MS-13 and agreed to a deportation order but shielded him from being sent to El Salvador because he was likely to face persecution there by a local gang.
The Trump administration did not appeal against that decision, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has since said in a court filing that Abrego García’s deportation to El Salvador was an “administrative error”. The supreme court also called his removal illegal.
You can read the full story here:
China’s top Hong Kong official warns US ‘hillbillies’ over ‘shameless’ tariffs
One of China’s lead officials overseeing Hong Kong has condemned punitive US tariffs on China as “shameless” and attacked American “hillbillies” amid a continuing trade war between Beijing and Washington that has caused turmoil in global markets.
Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office, said Hong Kong has never levied taxes on imports and that the US enjoyed a $272 bn trade surplus in the city over the past decade.
US President Donald Trump has increased the levies imposed on China to 145%, while Beijing has set a retaliatory 125 percent toll on American imports – a move not followed by Hong Kong.
Imposing tariffs on the city is “hegemonic and shameless in the extreme”, and shows that the US does not want Hong Kong to thrive, Baolong said in a pre-recorded speech at an event to mark the 10th iteration of China’s annual national security education day.
He said the US “is the greatest culprit in undermining Hong Kong’s human rights, freedom, rule of law, prosperity and stability.”
“It is not after our tariffs – it wants to take our lives,” Baolong was quoted as saying.
He added that the sweeping US tariffs would not shake the determination of Beijing and Hong Kong governments and that “victory must belong to the great Chinese people”.
“Let those American ’hillbillies’ wail before the 5,000-year-old civilisation of the Chinese nation” he said, adding that anyone seeking to bring China into poverty was an “enemy”.
The officials reference could be to Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir based on recollections of a volatile childhood in Middletown, Ohio, which became a political lightning rod in the 2024 presidential race when the Ohio senator was Donald Trump’s running mate.
Vance provoked anger in Beijing earlier this month when he referred to “Chinese peasants” in an interview defending Trump’s tariffs. Speaking to Fox News, Vance asked: “What has the globalist economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally, it’s based on two principles – incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us.
“To make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”
Hong Kong is a former British colony that became a special administrative region of China in 1997. In theory, it is governed under a system known as “one country, two systems”, a constitutional arrangement that promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy and rights protections.
But it is widely seen to have reneged on the deal, crushing pro-democracy protests and imposing a national security law in 2020 – targeting secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces – which has in effect silenced opposition voices among Hong Kong’s once-vibrant civil society.
Hong Kong is subject to the high US tariffs imposed on China as it is no longer considered a separate trading entity by Washington so means is not entitled to favourable trading terms anymore. Trump ended Hong Kong’s preferential trade status following China’s security crackdown on Hong Kong in 2020.
JD Vance says US hopeful of ‘great’ trade deal with UK
As my colleague Martin Belam reports in our UK politics live blog, JD Vance has said the US is optimistic it can negotiate a “great” trade deal with the UK.
In an interview with online outlet Unherd, the US vice president told Sohrab Ahmari:
We’re certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer’s government. The president really loves the UK. He loved the queen. He admires and loves the king. It is a very important relationship. And he’s a businessman and has a number of important business relationships in [the UK].
But I think it’s much deeper than that. There’s a real cultural affinity. And of course, fundamentally America is an Anglo country. I think there’s a good chance that, yes, we’ll come to a great agreement that’s in the best interest of both countries.
Unlike China, Britain was spared the most punitive treatment in Trump’s initial tariff announcement on 2 April, but British imports in the US still incur a 10% charge while its steel and car sectors incur a rate of 25%.
The UK government has been hopeful of a deal to exempt the UK from Trump’s tariffs.
The UK’s chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will aim to continue negotiations for an economic deal with the US later this month when she travels to Washington to attend the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings with other finance ministers. You can read more about Vance’s comments today in this article by my colleague Rachel Hall.
South Korea plans extra $4.9bn help for microchips after US begins ‘national security’ probe into semiconductor industry
South Korea has announced plans to invest an additional $4.9bn in the country’s semiconductor industry, citing “growing uncertainty” over US tariffs.
“An aggressive fiscal investment plan has been devised to help local firms navigate mounting challenges in the global semiconductor race,” the finance ministry said.
“To foster a dynamic, private sector-led ecosystem for semiconductor innovation and growth, the government will increase its investment in the sector from 26 trillion won ($18.2bn) to 33 trillion won,” the ministry added.
Semiconductors are tiny chips that power just about everything, including computers, mobile phones and cars. They are central to the global economy. The UK, the US, Europe and China rely heavily on Taiwan for semiconductors.
But South Korea – Asia’s fourth largest economy – is also a major exporter to the US and concerns about the semiconductor sector have hit the Seoul-listed shares of the world’s largest memory chip maker Samsung, and largest memory chip supplier SK Hynix.
The statement of extra investment from South Korea’s finance ministry comes after the Trump administration launched investigations into imports of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors on national security grounds.
These industries – so far exempt from the 10% US import charges that began on 5 April – may face tariffs after the probes are complete.
US President Donald Trump has directed the US commerce department to conduct a three-week investigation into the imports, during which time public comments on the issue will be heard before a decision is made.
Trump said on Sunday he would be announcing a tariff rate on imported semiconductors over the next week, adding that there would be flexibility with some companies in the sector.
On 2 April, Trump announced sweeping tariffs on global trading partners, including the 25 percent on South Korean goods, before backtracking and suspending their implementation for 90 days.
Even so, “duties targeting specific sectors such as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, remain on the horizon”, finance minister Choi Sang-mok said during a meeting.
“This grace period offers a crucial window to strengthen the competitiveness of South Korean companies amid intensifying global trade tensions,” he added.
Obama urges other universities to defy federal attempts to ‘stifle academic freedom’ after Harvard funding freeze
Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog.
Former US president Barack Obama has condemned the education department for freezing $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University after the elite college rejected a list of demands from the White House.
In some of his most vocal criticism of this Trump administration, Obama praised Harvard, the country’s oldest university, for setting an example for other higher education institutions to reject federal overreach into its governance practices.
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope other institutions follow suit.
His comments came after Harvard decided to fight the White House’s demands that it crack down on alleged antisemitism and civil rights violations. It is the first major US university to defy pressure from the White House to change its policies.
In a letter to Harvard on Friday, the administration called for broad government and leadership reforms, a requirement that Harvard institute what it calls “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies as well as conduct an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity.
The demands, which are an update from an earlier letter, also call for a ban on face masks, which appeared to target pro-Palestinian protesters; close its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which it says teach students and staff “to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes”; and pressured the university to stop recognizing or funding “any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment”.
The administration also demanded that Harvard cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
Harvard’s president said in a letter that the university would not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming and to limit student protests in exchange for its federal funding.
“No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Alan Garber, the university president, wrote, adding that Harvard had taken extensive reforms to address antisemitism.
The department of education announced in March that it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination”. It came after protests against Israel’s war on Gaza were put on across campuses last year, demonstrations that many Republicans framed as antisemitic.
Harvard’s response to the White House’s demands was in sharp contrast to the approach taken by Columbia University, the epicentre of last year’s protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The Trump administration cut $400m in grants to the private New York school, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment. The school caved in to demands and responded by agreeing to reform student disciplinary procedures and hiring 36 officers to expand its security team.
Stay with us throughout the day as we have more reaction to this story and many others.
