The move follows the cancellation of roughly $400 million in funding for Columbia and the suspension of $175 million for the University of Pennsylvania.

The Trump administration said on Monday that it was reviewing roughly $9 billion in federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard, claiming that the university had allowed antisemitism to run unchecked on its campus.

In a statement on Monday, the administration said that it was examining about $256 million in contracts, as well as an additional $8.7 billion in what it described as “multiyear grant commitments.”

The announcement of the investigation suggested that Harvard had not done enough to curb antisemitism on campus but was vague about what the university could do to satisfy the Trump administration.

“While Harvard’s recent actions to curb institutionalized antisemitism — though long overdue — are welcome, there is much more that the university must do to retain the privilege of receiving federal taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars,” Josh Gruenbaum, a senior official at the General Services Administration, said in a statement.

“This administration has proven that we will take swift action to hold institutions accountable if they allow antisemitism to fester,” he added. “We will not hesitate to act if Harvard fails to do so.”

In an email message to the Harvard community Monday evening, Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, noted that “we are not perfect” and said that Harvard would work with the federal government “to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism.”

“If this funding is stopped, it will halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation,” he wrote.

He also referenced his personal experience with antisemitism. “I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president, and I know how damaging it can be to a student who has come to learn and make friends at a college or university,” he said.

He may have been referring to a poster showing him with horns and a tail that was displayed by a student group during Harvard’s encampment last year.

The Harvard announcement followed the same template as a similar move against Columbia University last month. In its Monday announcement, the government did not fail to note the outsize role that Harvard plays in the public imagination, which makes it all the more tantalizing a target.

“Harvard has served as a symbol of the American dream for generations — the pinnacle aspiration for students all over the world to work hard and earn admission to the storied institution,” Linda McMahon, the secretary of education, said in the announcement.

“Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from antisemitic discrimination — all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry — has put its reputation in serious jeopardy.”

The statement said the government would collaborate with contracting agencies to assess whether to issue stop-work orders for any of the contracts under review.

It was not clear how the government had arrived at the figure of nearly $9 billion in grants for Harvard and its affiliates. But in his message, Dr. Garber indicated that it included money for hospitals affiliated with Harvard’s medical school, like Mass General Brigham, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Harvard and other universities have taken a number of steps in the wake of campus protests against the war in Gaza that some said veered into antisemitism, including highly contested chants by some pro-Palestinian demonstrators such as “from the river to the sea.”

For example, Harvard adopted a definition of antisemitism that labels some criticism of Israel as antisemitic, a move praised by some Jewish students and faculty members but condemned by free expression advocates. It clarified that both Jewish and Israeli identities are covered by its anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies.

Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and former Harvard president, called the review “a pretext for going after truth-seeking institutions that are threatening to would-be authoritarians.”

Antisemitism has been a genuine problem at Harvard, he said. “Just because Donald Trump says something doesn’t make it wrong, and Harvard has been way too slow in responding to the antisemitism,” he said.

“Harvard has made real errors,” Mr. Summers said. “But Harvard’s flaws do not remotely justify what is being threatened.”

Caption of Picture

Harvard Logo

=============