The US government has threatened to ban Harvard University from enrolling foreign students, after the institution said it would not bow to demands from Donald Trump's administration.

The White House has demanded the oldest university in the US make changes to hiring, admissions and teaching practices which it says will help fight antisemitism on campus.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday accused the Ivy League school of "threatening national security" and "bending the knee to antisemitism".

The NAACP sued the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday to stop its alleged illegal effort to cut off funding to schools that use diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and prevent Black students from receiving equal education opportunities.

Educators, researchers and employees at the Department of Education say that the Trump administration’s slashing of federal bureaucracies and workforces has significantly weakened special education enforcement and killed programs meant to help students with disabilities.

Columbia University’s president had already been hounded out of office, but her ordeal wasn’t over.

Four days after she stepped down under government pressure during fraught federal funding negotiations, Katrina Armstrong spent three hours being deposed by a government attorney in Washington, D.C. The lawyer grilled Armstrong over whether she had done enough to protect Jewish students against antisemitism. 

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.

Harvard University refused to accept a deal with the Trump administration two weeks after the US government threatened to halt $9 billion in funding, vowing it won’t “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.”

A billionaire Palestinian-American developer accused by Oct. 7 victims’ families of “aiding and abetting” Hamas has resigned from his position on the dean’s council at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, The Post can reveal, with the school acknowledging the civil complaint “raises serious allegations.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general in suing the Trump administration to stop it from cutting off access to more than $1 billion in funding to address the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on K-12 students.

Newsweek has contacted the White House and the Department of Education for comment via emails sent outside regular business hours.