The Trump administration has declared Harvard University ineligible for new federal research grants in the latest escalation between the White House and the Ivy League school.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon will send a letter warning the university that access to additional federal funding will be blocked until "they demonstrate responsible management," according to an administration official who reviewed the move on condition of anonymity.

Harvard will need to negotiate with the administration to resume eligibility, the official added. The official said the move could affect more than $1 billion annually, though the administration did not immediately provide a figure.

Harvard has been repeatedly criticized by President Donald Trump and his conservative allies who have accused it and other elite universities of ideological bias. The administration believes the school has failed to police anti-Semitism, encouraged the use of racial preferences on campus, abandoned academic rigor and is "monolithically left," the administration official said. The move is the latest retaliation in a clash between the administration and the university that has opened up a public debate over academic freedom and campus oversight. Harvard moved to sue the administration after the administration in April sent a series of policy changes it wants to impose on the university to "maintain Harvard's financial relationship with the federal government." The changes include eliminating diversity and inclusion programs and reforming the admissions process.

Last week, Trump said in a social media post that Harvard University would lose its tax-exempt status — though officials from the Internal Revenue Service, the White House and the Treasury Department declined to confirm that the changes had actually happened. The president's revocation of Harvard's tax-exempt status would undermine the lengthy legal process that goes into revoking an organization's status.

Read more: Trump Fuels Harvard Feud by Threatening Tax-Exempt Status

The administration has frozen billions of dollars in funding that supports projects including ALS and tuberculosis research, and Harvard has sued several U.S. agencies and top officials in response. Harvard recently took steps to raise more funds through the sale of $750 million in taxable bonds. Endowment officials have previously discussed selling about $1 billion in shares to a private equity fund. (Newsmaker23)

Source: Bloomberg