WASHINGTON, May 15, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Harvard University says it will plough $250 million into funding "critical research" after the US government announced fresh budget cuts to the elite school.

Federal agencies are slashing $2.6 billion in grants to Harvard, citing discrimination at one of the world's top universities.

Harvard has taken the Trump administration to court over what it calls an unlawful attempt to control aspects of the university's operations.

"Although we cannot absorb the entire cost of the suspended or canceled federal funds, we will mobilize financial resources to support critical research activity for a transitional period ," said Harvard President Alan Garber and Provost John Manning in a joint statement on Wednesday.

They said the university would "continue to work with our researchers to identify alternative funding sources."

The statement slammed the "unlawful freeze and termination" of grants which were "stopping lifesaving research and, in some cases, losing years of important work."

Harvard is the wealthiest US university with an endowment valued at $53.2 billion in 2024.

The Ivy League institution has drawn Trump's ire by refusing to comply with his demands that it accept government oversight of its admissions, hiring practices and political slant.

That prompted the Trump administration last month to freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding, with a further $450 million in cuts announced on Tuesday.

The White House is cracking down on US universities on several fronts, justified as a reaction to what the administration says is uncontrolled anti-Semitism and a need to reverse diversity programs aimed at addressing historical oppression of minorities.

It has also moved to revoke visas and deport foreign students involved in protests against the war in Gaza, accusing them of supporting Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Trump's claims about diversity tap into long-standing conservative complaints that US university campuses are too liberal, shutting out right-wing voices and favoring minorities.