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The Trump administration is asking government agencies to cancel roughly $100 million in remaining federal contracts with Harvard, the latest escalation in an ongoing clash with the prestigious university. In a letter on Tuesday, first reported by the New York Times, the General Services Administration directs agencies to conduct a review, terminate contracts where possible, and seek alternative vendors for future services. The letter says agency responses are due by June 6, 2025. Asked about the content of those contracts, May Mailman, a White House senior policy strategist, said in an interview Tuesday, "Some of them are a little bit ridiculous. One of them is a study on coffee, things like that." Mailman also accused Harvard of violating federal civil rights law, a sentiment echoed in Tuesday's letter. "If you want to be antisemitic, if you want to discriminate, if you want to have a racial hierarchy, then you are going to do it without the partnership of the federal government,�� Mailman said. Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. The school is suing the Trump administration over previous chapters of its pressure campaign, including efforts to halt enrollment of international students and freeze billions in federal research grants. The school has argued that the administration is violating First Amendment rights with wide-ranging policy demands on hiring, admissions, and curriculum. In a recent interview with NPR, Harvard President Alan Garber said they have taken steps to combat antisemitism and will continue to do so. However, he questioned how cutting off federal research funding helps the situation. “It is work that they want done. They are paying to have that work conducted. Shutting off that work does not help the country, even as it punishes Harvard, and it is hard to see the link between that and, say, antisemitism,�� Garber said. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in an interview Tuesday that it was not immediately clear what contracts were impacted by the Trump administration’s latest directive because its previous cuts were so widespread. “That included basically all of the research at our school of public health and every other bit of research I know of at the university. This is sawdust that is left after that chainsawing,�� Willett said. Willett fears decades of research could be lost, including long-term studies on how lifestyle factors like diet and exercise impact health outcomes like cancer. “It’s really a lost opportunity for all Americans to learn more about ways to be healthier and pass this information on to their children,�� Willett said, "It's possible that other institutions could do this kind of research but you would have to wait 40 or 50 years to get to the point that we are if you started over.�� Mailman said the Trump administration is generally “considering the same action for all universities,�� but they can avoid adverse consequences “if they are willing to be good partners.�� “As far as decoupling the government from a university entirely, I think that is going to be the university‘s decision that they no longer want to comply with federal law, they no longer want to comply with grant conditions, in which case they are not going to get the grant,�� Mailman said.