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United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to remove Harvard University’s tax-exempt status.
This follows the Ivy League school’s refusal to implement policy changes demanded by his government.
“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
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The 78-year-old added: “Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!”
Meanwhile, all major colleges and universities are tax-exempt organisations.
This comes less than 24 hours after Harvard rejected numerous demands from the Trump administration.
Harvard President Alan Garber, in a public letter on Monday, said the demands made by the Department of Education last week would allow the federal government to control the Harvard community and threaten the school’s values as a private institution.
In other news, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered the Federal Bureau of Intelligence, FBI, to make information about President Bola Tinubu public.
Judge Beryl Howell gave the order on Tuesday.
The development was sequel to a motion by Aaron Greenspan, an American who is seeking a reconsideration of an earlier ruling.
Howell said protecting the information from public disclosure is “neither logical nor plausible”.
Greenspan had accused the FBI of violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by failing to release within the statutory time “documents relating to purported federal investigations into” Tinubu and one Abiodun Agbele.
Tinubu was alleged to have forfeited $460,000 to the US government in 1993 after authorities linked the funds to proceeds of narcotics trafficking.
Recall that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and and Labour Party candidate Peter Obi had challenged Tinubu’s eligibility to contest Nigeria’s presidency at the Presidential Election Petition Court.
