US President Donald Trump attends the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, April 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis

The Trump administration may confiscate another $1 billion in federal funds previously appropriated to Harvard University over its allegedly breaching the confidentiality of negotiations on quelling campus antisemitism and reducing the institution’s left-wing bias, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The move would intensify what has become a fight over the future of elite higher education, against which conservatives have lodged a slew of criticisms for decades. Their moment to take action has now arrived with the second term of US President Donald Trump, which coincides with a precipitous drop in public support for academia caused by an explosion of pro-Hamas demonstrations on campuses and the promotion of views which many Americans perceive as anti-meritocratic, anti-Western, and racist.

Earlier this month, the administration impounded $2.26 billion in Harvard’s federal funds over the institution’s refusal to agree to a wishlist of policy reforms that Republican lawmakers have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Contained in a letter the administration sent to Harvard interim president Alan Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — the policies called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implore Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”

More cuts may be forthcoming, the Journal reported, due to the Trump administration’s fury over Garber’s decision to publicize the letter, which was intended to be a private discussion between it and Harvard. Administration officials were reportedly planning to treat the university “more leniently” than other schools from which it has already confiscated billions before the policy list was released.

Harvard, however, has denied that it ever agreed to keep its correspondence with the multi-agency Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism confidential. Meanwhile, the Trump administration believes “the school aimed to fight the entire time” and that it must now respond with more punitive measures to demonstrate its resolve to see a conflict with Harvard through to the end.

The administration is already taking action against the school in other ways. On Friday, the Department of Education announced that it is investigating Harvard’s foreign contributors, citing as cause the university’s alleged numerous failures to provide annual disclosures of gifts exceeding $250,000 as is required by the Higher Education Act of 1965.

“As a recipient of federal funding, Harvard University must be transparent about its relations with foreign sources and governments. Unfortunately, our review indicated that Harvard has not been fully transparent or complete in its disclosures, which is both unacceptable and unlawful,” US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “This records request is the Trump administration’s first step to ensure that Harvard is not being manipulated by, or doing the bidding of, foreign entities, which includes actors who are hostile to the interests of the United States and American studies.”

She added, “We hope Harvard will respect its own motto and be truthful in its federal filings and foreign relationships.”

Harvard University has been cheered by progressives and criticized by conservatives over its refusal to enact the reforms proposed by the Trump administration.

Former US President Barack Obama lauded Garber for “rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom,” and former Harvard president Larry Summers, speaking to The Harvard Crimson, said that the school should spend down its $53.2 billion endowment fund to offset the federal government’s cuts.

Others, however, such as pro-Israel activist Shabbos Kestenbaum, expressed more opprobrious views of Harvard, accusing it of “fighting Trump harder than it ever fought antisemitism.” Christopher Rufo, a conservative author and resident scholar of the Manhattan Institute, said Trump “has every right to withhold funding” due to the university’s embrace of the DEI movement and holding of segregated graduation ceremonies.

Harvard’s so-called “resistance” is backed by its immense wealth, and the school has been drawing on its vast financial resources to build a war chest for withstanding Trump’s budget cuts since March, when it issued over $450 million in bonds as “part of ongoing contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances.” Another $750 million in bonds was offered to investors in April, according to The Harvard Crimson, a sale that is being managed by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

A generous subsidy protects Harvard from paying exorbitant interest on the new debt, as investors can sell most bonds issued by educational institutions without being required to pay federal income tax. Other universities have resorted to borrowing as well, issuing what was reportedly a record $12.4 billion municipal bonds, some of which are taxable, during the first quarter of 2025. Among those which chose to take on debt are Northwestern University, which was defunded to the tune of $790 million on April 8. It issued $500 million in bonds in March. Princeton University, recently dispossessed of $210 in federal grants, is preparing an offering of $320 million, according to Forbes.

The strategy cannot be maintained indefinitely, Middle East expert and president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Asaf Romirowsky told The Algemeiner on Monday, noting that Harvard’s first bond offering fell short of its target by $15 million. He said that it is best, and cheaper, for Harvard, as well as other Ivy League institutions, to address the campus antisemitism crisis and “wokeness” on terms to which they and Trump can agree.

“Harvard and other elite colleges seem to feel that Trump is out to hurt them, but the fact of the matter is that they have refused to be introspective in assessing the quality of the product they produce,” Romirowsky explained. “It behooves everybody to find some kind of middle of the road if we are going to change and reform the institutions and give them time to clean themselves up.”

He continued, “Will Harvard survive? Of course, but it needs to reckon with the quality and caliber of its students and faculty, who are so ideologically disconnected from reality.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attends a press conference following a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2025. Photo: Tatyana Makeyeva/Pool via REUTERS

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will visit China on Tuesday, ahead of a third round of nuclear talks with the United States in Oman this weekend, as both Tehran and Beijing seek to deepen their bilateral ties.

“It is natural that we will consult and brief China over the latest developments in Iran-US indirect talks,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday, adding that Araghchi’s trip also aims to further the implementation of agreements between Tehran and Beijing as their relations grow stronger.

According to Jack Burnham, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, both countries recognize the increasing value of their cooperation on the global stage.

“The growing ties between China and Iran signal a rising ‘Axis of Aggressors’ coordinating their efforts to undermine US and Israeli national security,” Burnham told The Algemeiner.

“Iran remains a key supplier of cheap crude for Chinese refineries, while Chinese firms with close ties to the Chinese military have been accused of offering support to the Houthis [an Iran-backed terrorist group based in Yemen] in their strikes against US and Israeli targets,” he continued.

Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when both countries are facing escalating sanctions from Washington, particularly targeting Tehran’s oil industry, as part of US President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at cutting the country’s crude exports to zero and preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“As the Trump administration seeks to increase pressure on Tehran to gain leverage in ongoing nuclear talks, China’s support for Iran may become a more significant aspect of the regime’s willingness to hold out — a key factor behind the US Treasury Department’s efforts to sanction Chinese refineries as negotiations continue,” Burnham told The Algemeiner.

In an interview with the Russian state news agency RT, Araghchi said that close collaboration with Moscow and Beijing is “a necessity” for Tehran, given the current international climate.

“We have started trilateral talks with Russia and China on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program for some time now,” the Iranian top diplomat said. “We are ready to continue these talks and expand them to other issues.”

“Iran, China, and Russia – in a coordinated move – can take effective steps towards international peace,” he continued.

Tehran became a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian security and political group, in 2023 and also joined the BRICS group in 2024 — a bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa that positions itself as an alternative to economic institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

In 2021, Iran and China signed a comprehensive 25-year strategic agreement covering energy, security, infrastructure, and communications, which ceded almost all of Tehran’s natural and mineral resources, infrastructure, and markets to Beijing in exchange for security guarantees against the West.

The latest example of their growing military cooperation was their joint naval drills earlier this year, called the Maritime Security Belt 2025, in Iranian territorial waters in the Gulf of Oman, located in the northern Indian Ocean.

As part of Tuesday’s visit to Beijing, a high-ranking judicial delegation will join Iran’s top diplomat to the Chinese capital.

Iranian Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei will attend the 20th summit of the chairs of supreme courts from the nine member countries of the SCO. The conference will focus on strengthening legal cooperation to combat terrorism, organized crime, trafficking, and cybercrime.

The high-level trip comes ahead of a third round of nuclear talks with Washington in Oman this Saturday, following Tehran’s previous consultations with Russia.

After Saturday’s second round of nuclear negotiations in Rome, Araghchi announced that an expert-level track would begin in the coming days to finalize the details of a potential agreement.

“Relatively positive atmosphere in Rome has enabled progress on principles and objectives of a possible deal,” Araghchi wrote in a post on X.

“We made clear how many in Iran believe that the JCPOA [a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that imposed limits on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief] is no longer good enough for us. To them, what is left from that deal are ‘lessons learned,’” he continued.

“For now, optimism may be warranted but only with a great deal of caution.”

Iran has previously rejected halting its uranium enrichment program, insisting that the country’s right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable, despite Washington’s threats of military actions, additional sanctions, and tariffs if an agreement is not reached to curb Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Last week, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that any deal with Iran must require the complete dismantling of its “nuclear enrichment and weaponization program” — reversing his earlier comments, in which he indicated that the White House would allow Tehran to enrich uranium to a 3.67 percent threshold for a “civil nuclear program.”

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Pope Francis waves from a balcony, on the day he delivers his “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city and the world) message at St. Peter’s Square, on Easter Sunday, at the Vatican, March 31, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi

Pope Francis, who died on Monday at the age of 88 after leading the Catholic Church for 12 years, became an increasingly vocal critic of Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza in the months before his death.

The Vatican announced that Francis, who just one day earlier entered St. Peter’s Square in an open-air popemobile for the first time since surviving double pneumonia, died after a cerebral stroke, which put him into a coma and led to irreversible heart failure.

During his pontificate, Francis strongly condemned antisemitism and promoted interfaith dialogue between Jewish and Catholic communities. However, he also drew the ire of pro-Israel supporters and Jewish leaders, including the chief rabbi of Rome, for his sharp words against the Jewish state.

In December, he unveiled a nativity scene which featured a depiction of an infant Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh — a traditional Arab headdress that has been repurposed after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel to signal support for the anti-Israel activist movement. Some observers suggested that the scene in St. Peter’s Square — which was titled “Nativity of Bethlehem 2024” and designed by two artists from Bethlehem, Johny Andonia and Faten Nastas Mitwasi — effectively erased Jesus’s Jewish roots.

“The pope’s inauguration of a nativity scene that showed baby Jesus cradled in a Palestinian keffiyeh is an affront to Jesus, the Bible, and the 80 percent of Christians who have fled Bethlehem since the Palestinian Authority took over the city,” Laurie Cardoza-Moore, president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, said of the display at the time.

“Let’s be clear. The pope can’t rewrite the Bible — Jesus was a Jew from Judea, not a Palestinian. He was born to a Jewish mother in Bethlehem, in Judea — there was no Palestine,” Cardoza-Moore continued. 

In November 2024, Francis released a book which condemned Israel for the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Gaza. The pope accused Israel, without evidence, of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza and suggested that the Jewish state’s military tactics could be tantamount to a “genocide.” The Catholic faith leader also praised Jordan and Lebanon for accepting war refugees while not mentioning either country’s human rights issues.

“In the Middle East, where the open doors of nations like Jordan or Lebanon continue to be a salvation for millions of people fleeing conflicts in the region: I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory,” Francis wrote. 

Hezbollah, a terrorist group based out of southern Lebanon, pummeled northern Israeli communities almost daily with missiles, rockets, and drones following the Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel perpetrated by Hamas, another Iran-backed terrorist group. The Lebanese Islamist movement fired over 10,000 projectiles at Israel over a year. About 70,000 Israelis were forced to evacuate their homes in northern Israel and flee to other parts of the country amid the unrelenting attacks.

Meanwhile, approximately 174,000 individuals of Palestinian descent currently reside in Jordan and are not eligible for citizenship within the state. These individuals are referred to as “ex-Gazans” and are generally excluded from state-run social support and health programs. Jordanians of Palestinian ancestry are generally underrepresented in the nation’s parliament and public universities partially due to discrimination and social barriers. 

“According to some experts,” Francis continued, “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide. It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies.”

The pope later clarified his remarks, explaining that he does not necessarily believe the war in Gaza constitutes “genocide” but should still be “investigated.”

“I did not claim that Israel committed genocide,” he stated. “I was shown materials from the war, and I said that if this is true, then it needs to be investigated. I understand what is happening in Gaza. I think Hamas should no longer exist in the world, but the war should also not be prolonged.”

Francis’s increasingly sharp words led Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, spiritual leader of Rome’s Jewish community, in January to criticize the pope for unfairly focusing his attention on Israel compared to other ongoing world conflicts, including those in Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Ethiopia.

“Selective indignation … weakens the pope’s strength,” the chief rabbi of Rome said. “A pope cannot divide the world into children and stepchildren and must denounce the sufferings of all. This is exactly what the pope does not do.”

In his Easter 2025 message, Francis expressed empathy for the plight of Palestinians and the suffering of Israelis, calling on the Hamas terrorist group to release the remaining hostages in Gaza and for Israel to cease its military campaign. 

“I express my closeness to the sufferings … of all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people,” the pope said in his message. “I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace.”

Despite his sharp criticism of Israel, Francis has repeatedly expressed public empathy for the families of Israeli hostages in Gaza. 

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel, Francis said that he prays “for those families who saw a feast day turn into a day of mourning, and I ask that the hostages be immediately released.”

The pope also met with family members of hostages in April 2024 to hear their stories. Following the meeting, Ashley Waxman Bakshi, the relative of a hostage, said the pope was “very clear about his solidarity for the release of the hostages.”

Despite the pontiff’s tumultuous relations with Israel, leaders within the Jewish state paid their respects to the Catholic faith leader, recognizing his significance to Christians globally. 

Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised Francis as “a man of deep faith and boundless compassion.”

“He rightly saw great importance in fostering strong ties with the Jewish world and in advancing interfaith dialogue as a path toward greater understanding and mutual respect,” Herzog said.

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