Overview

• Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a letter accusing Harvard of legal violations and demanding it stop seeking federal research grants.
• The letter, containing significant grammatical errors, has been widely mocked and criticized as poorly written and legally contentious.
• Harvard denounced the letter as an unlawful attempt to exert federal control over academic institutions and affirmed its compliance with the law.
• A viral claim that Harvard annotated the letter with red-pen corrections was confirmed to be false by fact-checkers.
• The broader dispute underscores tensions over federal funding, academic freedom, and ideological oversight in higher education.