Washington, 7 Feb

The Pentagon on Friday said it is cutting ties with Harvard University, ending all military training, fellowships and certificate programmes with the Ivy League institution.

The announcement marks the latest development in the Trump administration's prolonged standoff with Harvard over the White House's demands for reforms at the Ivy League school.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement on Friday that Harvard "no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services."

"For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class," Hegseth said. "Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard -- heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks."

In a separate post on X, Hegseth wrote, "Harvard is woke; The War Department is not."

Starting with the 2026-27 academic year, the Pentagon will discontinue graduate-level professional military education, fellowships and certificate programmes, the statement said. Personnel currently attending classes at Harvard will be able to finish those courses.

The military offers its officers a variety of opportunities to get graduate-level education both at war colleges run by the military as well as civilian institutions like Harvard.

Broadly, while opportunities to attend prestigious civilian schools offer less direct benefit to a service member's military career than their civilian counterparts, they help make troops more attractive employees once they leave the military.

Harvard has long been Trump's top target in his administration's campaign to bring the nation's most prestigious universities to heel. His officials have cut billions of dollars in Harvard's federal research funding and attempted to block it from enrolling foreign students after the campus rebuffed a series of government demands last April.

The White House has said it is punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus.