Trump administration takes aim at Harvard's international students and tax-exempt status

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has escalated its ongoing battle with Harvard, threatening to block the university from enrolling international students as the president called for withdrawing Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

The moves raise the stakes of the showdown between the White House and the nation's oldest, wealthiest and arguably most prestigious university, which on Monday became the first to openly defy the administration’s demands related to activism on campus, antisemitism and diversity.

“I think Harvard's a disgrace,” President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security ordered Harvard on Tuesday to turn over “detailed records" of its foreign student visa holders ’ "illegal and violent activities” by April 30. It also said it was canceling two grants to the school totaling $2.7 million.

By taking action against international students and the school's tax status, the administration struck at two pillars of Harvard, where international students make up 27% of the campus, and the majority of the student body is in graduate school, often conducting globally prominent research. The school has risen to distinction by attracting the world’s top talent and large tax-deductible gifts from the country’s richest donors.

The federal government has already frozen more than $2 billion in grants and contracts to the Ivy League institution.

Leo Gerdén, a senior from Sweden, said many international students at Harvard are “scared of speaking up” because they feel attending the school has put a target on their back.

“All student visas right now at Harvard are at risk, and what the Trump administration is trying to do is divide us,” Gerdén said.

“Harvard without its international community is simply not Harvard,” added Gerdén, who is studying economics and government. If the institution were unable to admit people from abroad, “it would be incredibly tough for this university, for its students, for its academic community. So we should really fight with whatever means we have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The threat to Harvard’s ability to host international students comes as the Trump administration has quietly deleted the records and ended the legal status of international students at schools across the country. The students have been left with no clear recourse to regain their legal status in the U.S. They fear deportation.

At least 1,024 students at 160 colleges, universities and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials and court records. Many students said they had no legal infractions aside from minor traffic violations.

Some of the government’s demands of Harvard touched directly on the campus activism that first triggered federal scrutiny of elite universities.

The Trump administration, in a letter on Friday, told Harvard to impose tougher discipline on protesters and to screen international students for those who are “hostile to the American values.”

It also called for broad leadership reforms at the university, changes to admissions policies and the removal of college recognition for some student clubs. The government also demanded Harvard audit its faculty and student body to ensure wide viewpoints in every department and, if necessary, diversify by admitting additional students and hiring new faculty.

On Monday, Harvard said it would not comply, citing the First Amendment. The following day, Trump took to his Truth Social platform, questioning whether the university should lose its tax-exempt status “if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”

The White House suggested IRS scrutiny of Harvard’s tax status had already started before the president's social media post. Federal tax law prohibits senior members of the executive branch from requesting that an IRS employee conduct or terminate an audit or investigation.

“Any forthcoming actions by the IRS will be conducted independently of the President, and investigations into any institution’s violations of its tax status were initiated prior to the President’s TRUTH,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in an email Thursday.

However, a person familiar with the matter said the Treasury Department directed Andrew De Mello, the IRS acting chief counsel, to begin the process of revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status shortly after Trump’s post. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

Trump told reporters Thursday that a decision on revoking the university’s tax-exempt status hadn’t been made yet. “Tax-exempt status, it’s a privilege. It’s really a privilege. And it’s been abused by a lot more than Harvard," Trump said. "So we’ll see how it all works out. “

Tax exemptions enable universities to receive large donations from major funders who want to decrease their tax burdens, which was instrumental in helping Harvard amass the nation’s largest university endowment at $53 billion.

The Trump administration has already hampered Harvard's ability to fund its research and operations. After Harvard President Alan Garber said Monday the university would not bend to the government’s demands, the White House announced the freeze of more than $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in contracts.

The hold on federal money for research marked the seventh time the administration has taken such a step at one of the nation’s most elite colleges. Republicans say the schools have allowed antisemitism and racial discrimination to fester in the form of pro-Palestinian protests and have promoted diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives contrary to the administration's directives.

Separately, the House Oversight Committee said Thursday that it would open an investigation into Harvard, accusing the school of a “lack of compliance with civil rights laws.”

In a statement Thursday, the university reiterated: "Harvard will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” Harvard, the school said, “will continue to comply with the law and expect the Administration to do the same.”

Christopher Rufo, who has pioneered several GOP strategies related to education, said the Trump administration should use against Harvard the same tools it used during the Civil Rights Movement to force desegregation, including stripping nonprofit status. Rufo said Harvard has discriminated against white and Asian American students, citing events such as graduation celebrations and a 2021 theater performance “exclusively for Black-identifying audience members.”

“Cut the funding and watch the university implode,” he said Tuesday on social media.

Nonprofit status, which is required for donations to be tax deductible, is contingent on an organization following IRS rules governing lobbying, political campaign activity and annual reporting obligations, among other requirements.

While “it’s easy for a 501(c)(3) organization to maintain its tax exempt status," according to IRS publications, it "can be just as easy to lose it.”

Former Harvard President Larry Summers, who also served as Treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton, decried the threat to remove Harvard's status.

“Any self-respecting Treasury Secretary would resign rather than have the Department be complicit in the weaponization of the IRS against a political adversary of the President,” he said on social media.

Trump’s campaign to force change at elite universities started at Columbia University, which initially agreed to several demands after the Trump administration froze $400 million of its federal funding.

But Columbia took a more emboldened tone after Harvard’s defiance. Columbia's acting president, Claire Shipman, said in a campus message Monday that some of the demands “are not subject to negotiation” and that she read of Harvard’s rejection with “great interest.”

Archon Fung, a professor of democracy at Harvard, called for “friends of academic freedom” and higher education to stand together.

“The government has an enormous amount of power — taxing power, investigatory power,” Fung said. “I don’t know who wins that struggle in the end.”

Associated Press education writers Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Archon Fung, professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, addresses students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community rally, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community rally, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community rally, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Archon Fung, professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, addresses students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community rally, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community rally, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community rally, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

A passer-by walks through a gate to the Harvard University campus, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024, in Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned Tuesday amid plagiarism accusations and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school's conduct policy. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Visitors stop at the statue of John Harvard in Harvard Yard at Harvard University, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

The Harvard University logo is displayed on a building at the school, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Spring buds appear on a tree near Eliot House, rear, at Harvard University, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

When NBC carried the Kentucky Derby for the first time in 2001, the broadcast lasted only 90 minutes.

On Saturday, when it carries the Run for the Roses for the 25th time, 90 minutes wouldn’t be enough for all the feature stories that will run leading up to post time.

NBC Sports will present 12 1/2 hours of coverage across two days on NBC, USA Network and Peacock. There will be five hours for Friday’s Kentucky Oaks on USA Network and Peacock. Saturday’s coverage begins on USA Network at noon ET before moving to NBC at 2:30 p.m. while Peacock will stream all 7 1/2 hours.

“So much has changed since we first started in 2001. At that time, we thought 90 minutes to cover a two-minute race. How are we going to fill all this time? Now we are still trying to figure out how we’re going to get this story in and that story in because there are so many great stories to tell,” said Donna Brothers, the only member of the broadcast team involved with all 25 Derbys on NBC.

NBC has done five hours of coverage on the main network on Derby Day since 2018. Sam Flood, the executive producer and president of NBC Sports Production, said the true evolution behind adding more hours while making the coverage appeal to a cross-section of viewers began after he produced his first Derby in 2006.

“I remember getting done with the show, which I think was two hours. I kept thinking, we can do so much more,” Flood said. “There are so many assets here that should be showcased, and that’s when we started blowing it out, adding more hours and slowly shifting more and more hours on to NBC and off the cable platforms.”

The expansion has also included the Kentucky Oaks. It started airing on Bravo in 2009 before moving to the NBC Sports Network and then USA Network.

The Derby broadcast has evolved into one of the most diverse sports events that NBC does yearly and is on par with the Olympics, which it carries once every two years, and the Super Bowl, which it has once every four years.

It also might be the only place where a viewer can see fashion, recipes from one of the hosts of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” and race predictions from NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacki.

Mike Tirico, the host of NBC’s coverage since 2017, said doing the Derby served as good preparation for hosting the Olympics as well as a stint as a guest host on the “Today” show last week.

“My time doing the Derby helped me to do the ‘Today’ show last week, not vice versa,” he said. “This show is so cool. It goes from speed figures to fascinators. It goes from betting to bourbon. We cover it all in the five hours with a great team of people who dive in and take their space and own it. We all build towards the race. The audience does the same.”

Tirico succeeded Tom Hammond as host. Hammond, a University of Kentucky graduate, was a guiding force around NBC’s early coverage and introducing the sport’s most prominent personalities to viewers.

Lindsay Schanzer, the supervising producer of NBC’s coverage, said one of the advantages of having nearly 4 1/2 hours leading up to post time at 6:57 p.m. ET is the chance to focus on the stories of the 20 horses that will line up in the starting gate.

Among the stories planned are the return of trainer Bob Baffert — who served a three-year suspension after Medina Spirit failed a drug test — 89-year-old trainer D. Wayne Lukas and Michael McCarthy, the trainer of prerace favorite Journalism, whose family was displaced from home in Southern California due to the wildfires.

Because of the many different topics in the broadcast, Schanzer has an interesting approach in how she books the coverage with what she calls a colors document, where each element of coverage has its own color.

“I like to look at it from a broad perspective to make sure there’s not too much of one color in one area, and every color is kind of represented across the show so that if you’re watching it, you’re getting a little bit of a taste of everything,” she said. “One color could be a fashion element, one could be Kornacki’s insights, one could be an interview with a horseman. I try to look at it in a holistic way like that.”

The approach has certainly worked. Last year’s broadcast averaged 16.7 million viewers, the largest Derby audience since 1989. That included an average minute audience of 714,000 streaming on Peacock.

Overall, 11 of the past 15 Derbys held in May have averaged at least 15 million.

“We’ve had all kinds of things happen (since 2001), and that’s what’s so unique about the sport, but specifically about the Derby,” said Jon Miller, NBC Sports president of acquisitions and partnerships. “You have 20 horses that come into that gate and long shots that can pull off the upset. You have favorites, you have great ownership stories, and you have legendary trainers. Who knows who is going to surprise this year? But that’s what’s great about it.”

AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing and Derby coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/kentucky-derby

Horses workout at Churchill Downs Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)