Much to the consternation of his political opponents, President Donald Trump has turned his attention to America's left-leaning colleges and universities with reform demands backed by the threat of cuts or pauses to certain federal funds those schools receive.

Trump has singled out Harvard University as an example, and this week, his administration has frozen more than 500 National Institutes of Health research grants totaling more than $1 billion, according to the Daily Caller.

That freeze of $1 billion in NIH grants comes in addition to last week's pause on roughly $2.2 billion in federal funds for Harvard, which was in response to the university's open defiance of the administration's reform demands.

Harvard defiant toward Trump admin reform demands

After an initial outreach warning of impending changes, the Trump administration sent a letter to Harvard University on April 11 that included a list of demands for reforms, including governance and leadership, merit-based hiring and admissions, limitations on international student admissions, ideological diversity among faculty and students, ending DEI programs, student discipline, and handling antisemitism.

Just days later, attorneys representing Harvard fired off a response letter which insisted that many of the proposed reforms were already being implemented but otherwise struck a defiant tone and declared that the government's demands infringed upon its rights as an institution.

"The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government," the letter concluded. "Accordingly, Harvard will not accept the government’s terms as an agreement in principle."

"Harvard remains open to dialogue about what the university has done, and is planning to do, to improve the experience of every member of its community," the letter added. "But Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration."

More than $3 billion in federal funds frozen

The Daily Caller reported that upon receipt of the reply letter from Harvard, the Trump administration froze approximately $2.2 billion in federal funds and grants to Harvard, only for the university to maintain its defiance in the face of the administration's reform demands.

As such, an additional $1 billion in NIH research and training grants have now also been frozen, according to unnamed senior Health and Human Services officials, one of whom blamed the university for being "intransigent with respect to obligations to protect students on this campus from the effects of insidious antisemitism."

"Harvard needs to fully come into compliance with Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act," one HHS official told the outlet. "They need to remedy the violations of Title IV with respect to Jewish students on campus, they need to make sure that they're not violating Title VI with respect to their admissions practices, and they need to provide sufficient guarantees that this conduct is not going to repeat itself."

Another senior HHS official said that Harvard's defiant response letter "clearly demonstrates that the university can, when motivated, respond quickly, but we’ve seen them go 18 months without apparently being sufficiently motivated to address the rampant antisemitism on this campus."

More funding freezes are possible

The Daily Caller observed that aside from the reply letter from Harvard's attorneys, the university has not yet conducted any formal outreach to the administration and instead filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the initial funding freeze.

One of the anonymous senior HHS officials told the outlet that "all options are on the table" in terms of additional funding freezes or other repercussions, though they declined to provide any specifics as to what else could be at risk of being paused next.

"This is a pause of grant funding, not a termination," one official explained. "So we can, assuming Harvard decides to come back into compliance with the federal civil rights laws, be turned back on."