CNN Host Can’t Figure Out Why Antisemitic Harassment Cost Harvard Federal Grants

Former Trump administration official Marc Short had to explain to “CNN NewsNight” host Abby Phillip Tuesday night why allowing antisemitic harassment led to Harvard losing federal grants.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced on May 6 that Harvard would not receive future grants, saying the Ivy League university displayed a “systemic pattern of violating federal law” over its failure to address the antisemitic harassment and its efforts to continue using race as a factor for admissions. Phillip questioned what research grants had to do with “how students treat each other.”

“You mentioned Hillsdale College just as an example. It’s more of a right-leaning college. The reason that Hillsdale College can be like, ‘We can teach whatever we want,’” Phillip said. “If they want to teach creationism, no one’s, I guess, going to stop them, although who knows what might happen in a Democratic administration. But they are also not doing the kind of research work that these large research institutions are doing that are in the public good. So, I mean, do you see the distinction here between those two things?”

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“I just said there are hundreds of public institutions who would gladly accept those research dollars and who are not hostile to Jewish students the way Harvard has been,” Short responded.

Since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the radical Islamic terrorist group Hamas that killed over 1,200 people in Israel, pro-Hamas protesters have occupied buildings, chanted a slogan that has connotations of wiping out Israel and blocked Jewish students from parts of campus at multiple universities, including Harvard.

“Yeah, but what does — what does the research dollars have to do with the way students treat each other on campus? It doesn’t have anything to do with one another,” Phillip asked.

“I think it’s been long established that when you’re getting federal taxpayer dollars,” Short responded, “that there are going to be strings attached to that. It’s been similar with other Democrat administrations and other schools too.”

The Department of Homeland Security terminated Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification Thursday, citing the Ivy League school’s failure to address antisemitism and its failure to provide accurate data on funds from foreign sources. Harvard has sued over the end to the grants and the termination of the foreign student visas.

“And so what does the [Trump administration] want Harvard to do?” Phillip asked, with Short responding, “Well, I think they probably want Harvard not to be hostile to Jewish students as a starting point.”

“But that’s not what they’ve said,” Phillip protested, with Short responding, “Actually, I think it is what Trump has said.”

Trump recently announced that he would consider redirecting $3 billion of Harvard’s grant money to trade schools. The president declared the move would be “a great investment” for the U.S. and is “so badly needed.”