NEW YORK, May 6 (Reuters) – A federal judge in Manhattan blocked the Trump administration on Tuesday from canceling more than $1.1 billion in unspent aid meant to help U.S. elementary and high schools address the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. But in a March 28 letter, McMahon, a member of Republican President Donald Trump’s cabinet, said states had ample time to spend the money, and allowing more time years after the pandemic ended was inconsistent with her department’s priorities.

McMahon and the Justice Department argued that taking back the money served the public interest, because taxpayer funds should be used for their intended purpose and the public health emergency from the pandemic had long passed. Other plaintiffs included attorneys general of Arizona, California, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada and Oregon.

‘Harvard should be a place where students go to learn and the best research gets done,’ Ackman continued. ‘It shouldn’t be a place that is allowing pro-terrorist organizations on campus, that only allows certain kinds of thinking and speech on campus. ‘They have lost all future grants, their tax exemptions are at risk,’ Ackman said on a panel at the Milken Institute Global Conference where 5,000 financiers, educators and scientists gather to discuss critical issues of the day.

Washington had authorized about $190 billion of aid to help K-12 schools recover from the pandemic, with funds meant for tutoring students who fell behind, Online English As Second Language 6th Grade Program upgrades to school buildings, food for homeless students and other purposes. He then again hit out at the school’s governing board, saying it has become insular and that there is no mechanism to remove members the way there is in corporate America where investors can run board challenges.

For these grants to be re-issued, a senior Education Department official said Harvard ‘would have to enter into a negotiation with the government to satisfy what the government says is in compliance with all federal laws.’ ‘Harvard became, over time, a political advocacy organization for one party,’ he claimed. ‘When a university goes from being a university to becoming a political advocacy organization, it doesn’t deserve nonprofit status.’ ‘If this were any other kind of corporation, the notion that she’s still chairman of Harvard, leading the charge here and, in terms of Harvard, managed everything from COVID…

to endowment management, to waste, to free speech, to who they hired as president of the university… It’s time for a change in leadership in the board at Harvard.’ Ackman, the founder and CEO of Pershing Square, made similar arguments on Tuesday, when he said Harvard should not be entitled to taxpayer funds when the school wastes money on what he calls ‘administrative bloat’  He has since also called out Trump’s plans to remove the school’s tax-exempt status, which he told the Wall Street Journal is ‘granted to educational institutions to enable them to successfully carry out their mission of education and, for research universities, of research.

‘The Trump administration won’t stand by as taxpayer dollars are used to support colleges that tolerate anti-Semitism or that support racist policies,’ the official continued during a call with reporters Monday night.