It is imperative that university educational systems should be able to act with academic freedom, free from government restrictions.  “No government, regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” stated Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, in response to Trump’s efforts to curtail and restrict the university and other educational organizations on what they can teach.  To enforce his point of view, Trump is threatening to eliminate the current age-old tax exemptions for the academic institution.
It’s likely that religion is probably next on his hit list to control by threating the tax exemption status on churches. Trump said that “Pope Francis actually said that maybe I am not a good Christian or something unbelievably nasty.”
Trump not only is threatening to cancel Harvard’s tax-exempt status, but he believes Harvard should be taxed as a political entity and cut off federal contracts for medical research.  Harvard is a leader noted for in-depth medical research saving countless patients’ lives. It has enabled the United States to achieve meaningful, lifesaving discoveries and provide world leadership in science and technology. 
Subsequently, Harvard has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing “it has violated the university’s constitutional rights by freezing billions of dollars in federal funding and imperiling its academic independence.”  In the suit, Harvard says the government may not interfere with private speech to advance its own ideology.
Gerry Snyder
Ely and Simsbury, Conn.