White House Press Secretary Slams Harvard 'LGBTQ Graduate Majors'

In an incoherent attack on higher education and the LGBTQ+ community, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed "LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard University" – whatever that means.

Leavitt's comments, made on Fox News, came in the wake of the president saying he wants to rescind all federal funding for Harvard University – an announcement that followed the administration's move to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status.

The current administration also threatened to eradicate the university's ability to admit international students after the university rebuffed demands to "eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, ban masks at campus protests, enact merit-based hiring and admissions reforms, and reduce the power of faculty and administrators the White House has said are 'more committed to activism than scholarship,'" CNN noted.

"The administration has accused Harvard of liberal bias and of facilitating antisemitic behavior on campus," The Daily Beast detailed. "On Monday [May 26] Trump took to Truth Social and sounded off about this perceived antisemitism, as he floated the idea of axing another $3 billion from Harvard, which he said would be funneled into trade schools."

"The planned move, which is in addition to about $2.65 billion in recent federal cuts to Harvard, is the White House's latest salvo against America's oldest university," the Beast added in its writeup, which characterized Leavitt's comments as "bizarre."

Leavitt "on Wednesday [May 28] said taxpayer money should go to vocational and trade schools that train electricians and plumbers, and 'not LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard,'" the Economic Times detailed.

"Electricians, plumbers – we need more of those in our country, and less LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard University," Leavitt told Fox's Sean Hannity.

"The President is more interested in giving that taxpayer money to trade schools and programs and state schools where they are promoting American values," Leavitt said, "but, most importantly, educating the next generation based on skills that we need in our economy and our society."

The current administration has punished top universities, including Ivy League schools, with the rationale that student protests critical of Israel's actions in Gaza constitute "antisemitism," despite high-profile Jewish leaders similarly condemning those actions.

The administration has not pulled back from punitive actions even when institutions of higher learning have capitulated. "Northwestern University, for example, released a list of steps it had taken to combat antisemitism that closely tracked with a list of demands the Trump administration had given to Columbia University," The New York Times noted in an article about the subject. "Northwestern was targeted several days later, nonetheless."

Amnesty International has called Israel's actions in Gaza "genocide," but the current administration has gone so far as to target individual university students for taking part in protests – or even writing op-ed pieces questioning the need for the severity of Israel's measures in the wake of the atrocities committed against Israel by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023.

Leavitt underscored Harvard's $53 billion endowment in her comments on Fox News, and wondered "why an institution pushing 'anti-American values' should 'receive a single penny of taxpayer funds,' when it has such a nest egg," the Beast relayed.