Harvard University fired back at US Education Secretary Linda McMahon, denying her allegation that the school has a partisan political bias and warning that government “overreach” is threatening key freedoms.

Harvard University won’t surrender its core principles to appease the Trump administration, its president said in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Monday. Harvard President Alan Garber decried the government’s “overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities” in a three-page letter hitting back at the Trump administration’s earlier threats to withhold grants from the university.

After US President Donald Trump's education secretary announced in a letter that Harvard would no longer receive federal grants, an image shared across social media purported to show the university appending handwritten red notes to the document to highlight grammar and style issues.

Alan Garber told the education secretary in a letter that they “share common ground” on some “critical issues," but denounced the Trump administration's tactics.

Harvard University President Alan Garber attempted to reassure the Trump administration that he is pursuing “needed reforms” to how the school addresses antisemitism as it seeks to recoup billions of dollars in federal funding.