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The Pentagon said Friday it is cutting ties with Harvard University, ending all military training, fellowships and certificate programs with the Ivy League institution.<\/p>\n
The announcement marks the latest development in the Trump administration\u2019s prolonged standoff with Harvard<\/a> over the White House\u2019s demands for reforms at the Ivy League school.<\/p>\n Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement Friday that Harvard \u201cno longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services.”<\/p>\n \u201cFor too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,\u201d Hegseth said. \u201cInstead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard \u2014 heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.\u201d <\/p>\n In a separate post on X, Hegseth wrote, \u201cHarvard is woke; The War Department is not.\u201d<\/p>\n Starting with the 2026-27 academic year, the Pentagon will discontinue graduate-level professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs, the statement said. Personnel currently attending classes at Harvard will be able to finish those courses.<\/p>\n Similar programs at other Ivy League universities will be evaluated in coming weeks, Hegseth said.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s office resurfaced the clip in which Hegseth, then a Fox News commentator, returned the diploma and wrote \u201cReturn to Sender\u201d on it with a marker.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Broadly, while opportunities to attend prestigious civilian schools offer less direct benefit to a servicemember\u2019s military career than their civilian counterparts, they help make troops more attractive employees once they leave the military.<\/p>\n Harvard has long been President Donald Trump\u2019s top target in his administration\u2019s campaign to bring the nation\u2019s most prestigious universities to heel. His officials have cut billions of dollars in Harvard\u2019s federal research funding and attempted to block it from enrolling foreign students<\/a> after the campus rebuffed a series of government demands last April.<\/p>\n The White House has said it\u2019s punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus. Harvard leaders argue they’re facing illegal retaliation for failing to adopt the administration’s ideological views. Harvard sued the administration in a pair of lawsuits. A federal judge issued orders siding with Harvard in both cases. The administration is appealing.<\/p>\n Tensions had eased over the summer as Trump teased a deal that he said was just days away. It never materialized and on Monday the president dug deeper, demanding $1 billion from Harvard as part of any deal to restore federal funding. That’s twice what he had demanded before.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list<\/a> of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n