The Ivy League university declined to 'surrender' to the letter's demands, prompting an escalating series of attacks by the US president Harvard University was told by an unidentified official on US President Donald Trump's antisemitism task force that a letter of demands had been sent to the university without authorisation,

Harvard said on Saturday the Trump administration was "doubling down" on far-reaching demands on the university despite a published report that government officials had sent a letter spelling out those demands without authorization.

An official on the administration’s antisemitism task force told the university that a letter of demands had been sent without authorization.