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BOSTON: US President Donald Trump’s administration expanded its campaign against Harvard University on Monday as the Department of Health and Human Services said it would start a process that could lead to the school becoming ineligible for federal funding. HHS’ Office for Civil Rights said it had referred Harvard to the office within the department responsible for administrative suspension and debarment proceedings, a move that opened the door to the Ivy League school being barred from entering into contracts with all government agencies or receiving federal funding.
Its announcement came after the Office for Civil Rights in July referred the school to the US Department of Justice to address allegations it failed to address discrimination and harassment against Jewish and Israeli students on its campus.
Paula Stannard, the director of the Office for Civil Rights, said her office had notified Harvard of its right to a formal administrative hearing, where an administrative law judge would determine whether it violated the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It has 20 days to seek a hearing. “OCR’s referral of Harvard for formal administrative proceedings reflects OCR’s commitment to safeguard both taxpayer investments and the broader public interest,” Stannard said in a statement.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard did not respond to requests for comment. The university has said it aims to combat discrimination.
Trump’s administration has launched a campaign to leverage federal funding to force change at Harvard and other universities, which the president says are gripped by antisemitic and “radical left” ideologies. Harvard has sued over some of those actions, leading a judge to rule earlier this month that the administration had unlawfully terminated more than $2 billion in research grants awarded to the school.
US District Judge Allison Burroughs in her ruling said that the Trump administration “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.”
The administration has been seeking a settlement with Harvard. Trump during a recent cabinet meeting said the university should pay “nothing less than $500 million” as it had “been very bad.” The administration says universities allowed displays of antisemitism during pro-Palestinian protests. Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say their criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories should not be characterized as antisemitism and their advocacy for Palestinian rights should not be equated with extremism.

NEW YORK: YouTube has agreed to pay $22 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump after it suspended his account over the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, according to a court document released Monday.
The online video platform, a Google subsidiary, is the latest Big Tech firm to settle with Trump after he went to court in July 2021 over his suspension.
Major platforms removed Trump at the time due to concerns he would promote further violence with bogus claims that voter fraud caused his loss to former president Joe Biden in 2020.
The 79-year-old Republican took social media companies and YouTube to court, claiming he was wrongfully censored.
The settlement will go toward Trump’s latest construction project at the White House, through a nonprofit called Trust for the National Mall, which is “dedicated to restoring, preserving, and elevating the National Mall, to support the construction of the White House State Ballroom,” per the filing.
Trump’s posting privileges were curbed after more than 140 police officers were injured in hours of clashes with pro-Trump rioters wielding flagpoles, baseball bats, hockey sticks and other makeshift weapons, along with Tasers and canisters of bear spray.
In February, Elon Musk’s X settled for about $10 million, in a lawsuit against the company and its former chief executive Jack Dorsey.
In January, days after Trump’s inauguration, Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle the 79-year-old Republican’s complaint, with $22 million of the payment going toward funding Trump’s future presidential library.
Parent company Alphabet reported the online video platform’s ad sales alone accounted for more than $36 billion in revenue in 2024, per its 2025 annual report filed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.