President Trump’s Secretary of Education Linda McMahon wrote a lengthy letter to the president of Harvard University, Alan Garber, to complain about the iconic academic institution and to officially inform the university that the federal government will no longer provide grants to Harvard.
McMahon shared her letter — which accused Harvard of lacking “any semblance of academic rigor” and engaging “in a systemic pattern of violating federal law” — on X
Among commenters deriding McMahon’s insult-laden letter was Andrew Feinberg, White House correspondent for The Independent, who amplified the post and shared his opinion of McMahon’s effort: “Whoever wrote this is barely literate.”
Whoever wrote this is barely literate. https://t.co/AUnLaHCLLD
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) May 5, 2025
MAGA supporter and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza was among those defending McMahon’s missive, replying to Feinberg: “Clearly she didn’t go to Harvard, since her letter is refreshingly free of self-referential pomposity, nor does it give any indication of being plagiarized from other sources.” (D’Souza is likely snidely referring to plagiarism allegations leveled at former Harvard President Claudine Gay.)
[Note: D’Souza, who pleaded guilty to making an illegal campaign contribution and was pardoned by Trump in 2018, later admitted that some of the claims regarding the 2020 presidential election in his widely debunked film 2,000 Mules were false. D’Souza is familiar with some of the terrain McMahon’s letter covers: he moved to the U.S. as an exchange student and graduated from the Ivy League’s Dartmouth College.]
English-born computer scientist and essayist Paul Graham, who graduated from Harvard and Cornell, also criticized McMahon’s letter and replied to Feinberg: “And gets most of their information from Twitter.”
McMahon reiterated her complaints against Harvard on Fox News (below), and denied that the federal government is “trying to dictate to them how they should run their university.” (Harvard has filed a lawsuit against the the administration over blocked federal funding.)
McMahon said that the administration is not dictating to Harvard — “clearly not the case,” she said — but then added that Trump “wants them to change things.”
The Education Secretary also claimed, without presenting evidence, that only three percent of the Harvard faculty is conservative. (It’s not as if Harvard has failed to produce conservative voices — it’s notable perhaps that 50 percent of the Harvard Law graduates on the Supreme Court are conservative, including Chief Justice John Roberts, as is Harvard grad and Claudine Gay nemesis Elise Stefanik, the Congresswoman from New York.)
Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided.
Receiving taxpayer funds is a privilege, not a right. pic.twitter.com/vE3va3Saw4
— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) May 6, 2025