appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Associated Press

Reuters

The Pentagon is cutting ties with Harvard University, ending all military training, fellowships and certificate programmes with the Ivy League institution.
Friday’s announcement marks the latest development in the Trump administration’s prolonged stand-off with Harvard over the White House’s demands for reforms at the Ivy League school.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement on Friday that Harvard “no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services”.
“For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” he said.
“Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard – heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.”

In a separate post on social media, Hegseth wrote: “Harvard is woke; the War Department is not.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has cracked down on top US universities, including Harvard, over a range of issues such as pro-Palestinian protests against US ally Israel’s assault on Gaza, diversity programmes, transgender policies and climate initiatives.
“Starting now and beginning in the 2026-27 school year, I am discontinuing all graduate level Professional Military Education, all fellowships and certificate programmes between Harvard University and the War Department for active-duty service members,” Hegseth said on social media.
The policy would apply to service members enrolling in future programmes while those currently enrolled would be allowed to finish their courses, Hegseth said.


He also added that the Pentagon would evaluate similar relationships with other universities in the coming weeks.
Hegseth earned a master’s degree from Harvard but symbolically returned his diploma in a 2022 Fox News segment. A Pentagon social media account run by Hegseth’s office resurfaced the clip in which the then Fox News commentator returned the diploma and wrote “Return to Sender” on it with a marker.
The military offers its officers a variety of opportunities to get graduate-level education both at war colleges run by the military as well as civilian institutions like Harvard.
Broadly, while opportunities to attend prestigious civilian schools offer less direct benefit to a service member’s military career than their civilian counterparts, they help make troops more attractive employees once they leave the military.
‘Hate activism’
Rights advocates have raised free speech, academic freedom and due process concerns over the government’s actions against universities.
A page on the history of Harvard’s ties with the US military that says the university has played a “significant role” in America’s military traditions since the nation’s founding.
The university has previously sued the Trump administration over the government’s attempt to freeze federal funding.
Hegseth accused Harvard of “hate America activism”, also calling the university antisemitic in a reference to pro-Palestinian protests.

Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly equates criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.
Harvard has condemned discrimination on campus. Its antisemitism and Islamophobia task forces found last year that Jews and Muslims faced bigotry after the start of Israel’s war in Gaza following an October 2023 Hamas attack.
Trump’s attempts to freeze federal funds for Harvard have faced legal resistance and the two sides have failed to reach a deal thus far.
The president said this week his administration was seeking US$1 billion from Harvard to settle investigations into school policies.
Some Ivy League schools have reached agreements with the Trump administration and accepted certain government demands. Columbia University has agreed to pay more than US$220 million to the government while Brown University has agreed to pay US$50 million to support local workforce development.


Analysts tip a stronger hand for China ahead of Xi-Trump summit in Washington

Trump says he will create ‘AI Force’, name AI tsar

White House bars CNN, MS Now and Politico reporters after Trump ban

Denmark cautiously optimistic over Trump’s Greenland deal

United States

Pentagon ditches Harvard as Hegseth declares university too ‘woke’

People leave Harvard University on April 17, 2025. Photo: Getty Images/TNS

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth greets Army National Guard soldiers after administering their oath during a re-enlistment ceremony at the base of the Washington Monument on Friday. Photo: Reuters

A Harvard student stands in front of the statue of benefactor John Harvard, draped in the Palestinian flag, during an anti-Gaza war rally on April 25, 2024. Photo: AP

Is decline in Japanese studies risking US relations with key Indo-Pacific ally?

US President Donald Trump (left) and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi talk during a US-Japan trade deal signing on October 28. Photo: Reuters

Temple University professor of biology Jody Hey teaches a class. Photo: The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

Epstein files reveal proposal for Tsinghua University campus in Boston

Emails from 2016 suggest China’s Tsinghua University had agreed to build a branch campus in Boston, but the plans later fell through.
Photo: Shutterstock

A view of 1550 Soldiers Field Road in Boston, Massachusetts, taken in October 2020. Chinese-American mathematician Shing-Tung Yau was eyeing the site for a possible Tsinghua University campus expansion from 2016-2019. Photo: Google Street View

Chinese student numbers at Harvard rise despite Trump visa crackdown

Harvard is continuing its fight against the Trump administration with two legal challenges over funding cuts and foreign student enrolment restrictions. Photo: Getty Images

US university seeks to dismiss lawsuit by family of China-born scientist Jane Wu

Northwestern denies allegations that its conduct contributed to the death of professor Jane Wu. The university has been asked to submit a more concise version of its motion to dismiss a lawsuit, with a full hearing scheduled for February. Photo: Handout

Jane Wu with her children in Nashville. Photo: Handout

Trump says seeking US$1 billion from Harvard in ‘damages’

The Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Photo: Xinhua

US President Donald Trump. Photo: AP

News

World

United States & Canada

The defence secretary says the Ivy League university ‘no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services’.


Pentagon ditches Harvard as Hegseth declares university too ‘woke’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The defence secretary says the Ivy League university ‘no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services’.

The defence secretary says the Ivy League university ‘no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services’.