(Bloomberg) -- Former President Donald Trump said he'd end tax exemptions for universities deemed to be left-leaning if voters return him to the White House, pointing to the uproar over campus antisemitism that engulfed three college presidents in recent weeks.
Trump told a campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire, he'd remove tax advantages for universities that discriminate against conservatives, Christians, Jews and for schools that “attack free speech.”
“They will pay us billions and billions of dollars for the terror they have unleashed into our once-great country,” Trump said in speech on Saturday, citing schools including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Pennsylvania.
While criticizing America's academic elite has been a Republican talking point for years, Trump seized on the congressional testimony by the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT this month in the wake of campus conflict inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war.
Penn's president, Liz Magill, handed in her resignation on Dec. 9 and prominent donors have turned away from the schools in a backlash against the testimony, where Magill, Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT leader Sally Kornbluth failed to issue clear condemnations when asked if calling for the genocide of Jews violated school policy.
Trump, who polls suggest is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, previously called in a video released in July for reshaping the accreditation process for universities to “reclaim” educational institutions from “the radical left.”
New Hampshire holds its primary on Jan. 23, eight days after the Iowa caucuses.
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