Harvard University announced Monday it will not agree to the Trump administration’s demands to address antisemitism on campus.

The Department of Education (ED) sent a letter to the Ivy League school April 11 demanding the school agree to a host of reforms, including adjusting and enforcing disciplinary processes, improving screening of international students for “hostile” views and auditing “programs with egregious records of antisemitism.” Harvard cited academic freedom concerns and free speech rights in its announcement rejecting ED’s demands. 

Harvard University on Monday rejected demands from the Trump administration as it threatens the school’s federal funding as part of a broader clampdown on higher education.

In a message to the Harvard community from its leadership — and in a corresponding letter from the school’s attorneys to the federal government — the university said that while it is and will continue to engage in reforms, those changes should not be mandated by Washington.

Harvard University rejected a list of demands from the Trump administration that would require sweeping changes at the higher education institution to secure back nearly $9 billion in federal funding, saying it would not allow itself “to be taken over by the federal government.”

In a letter to administration officials on Monday, lawyers for the university said the list of demands the government sent in early April “go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration” and refused to agree to the terms.

Another pro-Palestinian Columbia University student and U.S. green card holder was detained by federal agents as he arrived for a citizenship appointment Monday.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a permanent resident in the U.S. for 10 years, was one of the leading voices of protests on the New York City campus in the early months of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be kicked out of the U.S. as a national security risk, an immigration judge in Louisiana found Friday during a hearing over the legality of deporting the activist who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

The government’s contention that Khalil’s presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation, Immigration Judge Jamee E. Comans said at the conclusion of a hearing in Jena.

A US judge has ruled the Trump administration can deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate detained last month over his role in pro-Palestinian protests.

Mr Khalil, a permanent legal US resident, has not been charged with a crime. In a letter written from the facility, he has said his "arrest was a direct consequence" of speaking out for Palestinian rights.

The government has cited a Cold War-era immigration law, declaring that his presence in the US was adverse to American foreign policy interests.

A U.S. immigration judge in Louisiana ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration can move forward with deportation proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil.

The Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist’s case has become a flashpoint in the national debate over student protests and immigration policy. Judge James Comans at the LaSalle Immigration Court ruled that Khalil is removable under U.S. immigration law.

The Trump administration announced Monday it will “review” nearly $9 billion of federal funding for Harvard University and its affiliates, such as area hospitals, in an effort to “root out antisemitism,” according to the government’s antisemitism task force.

Harvard University is the latest target of the Trump administration’s ever-expanding investigation into elite universities.

The Trump administration has opened an examination of the government’s financial relationship with Harvard University, an indication that the nation’s richest college could be the next to lose its federal contracts and grants over its handling of campus antisemitism.