The Harvard Kennedy School of Government will lay off staff after federal funding cuts and endowment tax threats on Wednesday, according to an email from the dean of the school that was obtained by Fox News Digital.

Without mentioning the Trump administration directly, Harvard Kennedy School Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein announced in an email to faculty and staff that the cuts were in response to "unprecedented new headwinds" creating "significant financial challenges." These included a "substantial proposed increase in the endowment tax" and "massive cuts to federal funding of research."

He also cited the impact on international student enrollment after the administration eliminated the student visa program due to "pro-terrorist conduct" at Harvard's campus protests. According to the Kennedy School, international students made up 59 percent of the school’s student body last year, and 52 percent on average in the past five years.

HARVARD UPDATES LAWSUIT AFTER TRUMP CANCELS ADDITIONAL $450M IN FUNDING

The Kennedy School has been planning for budget cuts since February, but the White House’s recent actions appear to have exacerbated the circumstances.

The Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in funding to the university and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status due to its handling of antisemitism on campus in the wake of the October 7 terror attacks on Israel by Hamas. 

The Department of Education’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism released a statement on May 13, citing recent reporting that "has exposed the Harvard Law Review’s (HLR) pattern of endemic race discrimination when evaluating articles for inclusion in its journal." 

The findings resulted in the Trump administration cutting an additional $450 million in grants from the university.

In addition to layoffs, Harvard has implemented "important steps" to reduce costs across the Kennedy School, Weinstein said, such as pauses in hiring and merit-based pay, ending a lease on the first floor of an office building, halting "non-urgent" construction and renovation projects, and "reducing spending" across each core department.

"Unfortunately, those efforts alone will not be enough to address our current financial challenges," the dean wrote. "As a result, we need to lay off some members of our team and restructure other positions to ensure the long-term financial future of the Kennedy School."

TRUMP FROZE FUNDING FOR HARVARD. MONEY TO THESE UNIVERSITIES MAY ALSO BE ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK

Weinstein stated that managers would inform staff affected by the layoffs on Wednesday afternoon.

"This is an extremely difficult moment, and one that we did everything possible to avoid," Weinstein added.

"I am truly sorry that we need to take this step as we navigate unprecedented challenges as a School and University," Weinstein wrote, while also noting that the administration's actions caused "even greater financial uncertainty."

The Harvard Kennedy School declined to disclose to Fox News Digital how many staff members were laid off. 

The Harvard School of Public Health implemented layoffs in April and other schools are considering cutting staff as well, the Harvard Crimson reported Thursday.

The Trump administration did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

EXCLUSIVE - The House Judiciary Committee is asking the president of Brown University to hand over all internal memos related to a student who sent a DOGE-style email who subsequently faced disciplinary hearings and had his private information leaked. 

"We are concerned that Brown’s decision to file disciplinary charges against Mr. Shieh and hold a misconduct hearing may serve to suppress free speech and discourage others from coming forward and asking questions related to Brown’s rising costs," the Thursday letter from the House Judiciary Committee to Brown University President Christina Paxson said. 

Alex Shieh, a rising junior who was cleared of wrongdoing by the university on May 14, had previously angered school officials by sending a DOGE-like email to non-faculty employees identifying himself as a journalist for The Brown Spectator and asking them what they do all day to try to determine why the school's tuition has gotten so expensive.

BROWN UNIVERSITY CLEARS STUDENT OF WRONGDOING AFTER HE SENT CAMPUS EMPLOYEES DOGE-LIKE EMAIL

The letter, signed by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wisc., chairman of the Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, seeks to understand Brown’s "rationale for attempting to silence a student raising questions about how student and taxpayer dollars are being used." 

The Brown Spectator, which has a board of three people, including Shieh, was revived this year after it ceased publication in 2014. 

The board members faced a disciplinary hearing on May 7 over allegations that they violated Brown University’s name, licensing and trademark policies. 

Shieh previously told Fox News Digital that other campus publications also use the school’s name, including "The Brown Daily Herald," another student-run nonprofit newspaper. 

Shieh and the Spectator faced scrutiny from the university after Shieh, during free weekends in March, began investigating positions he deemed redundant after reviewing 3,805 non-faculty employees who worked at Brown and emailing them to ask, "What do you do all day?" 

Shieh used AI to try to determine what Brown employees did and why the school, which costs nearly $96,000 a year, was so expensive.  

BROWN UNIVERSITY STUDENT WHO ANGERED NON-FACULTY EMPLOYEES FOR DOGE-LIKE EMAIL FACES PUNISHMENT FROM SCHOOL

When creating his database, he formatted it to identify three particular jobs: "DEI jobs, redundant jobs, and bulls--t jobs." 

He said that he wanted to investigate DEI because of President Donald Trump's executive orders addressing DEI policies, and his administration threatening to withhold federal funds to universities who employ them. The goal was to get as much data as possible to improve his research.

Only 20 of the 3,805 people emailed responded, with many of the responses being profane and hostile, and Shieh’s Social Security number was subsequently leaked.

On June 4, Shieh testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust for a hearing entitled, "The Elite Universities Cartel: A History of Anticompetitive Collusion Inflating the Cost of Higher Education."

The House Judiciary Committee is asking that Paxson, Brown’s president, provide all documents and communications between Brown's employees pertaining to Shieh’s "investigative inquiry, Brown University’s subsequent investigation of Mr. Shieh, Brown University’s decision to file disciplinary charges against Mr. Shieh, or Brown University’s adjudication of Mr. Shieh’s charges." 

The committee is also asking for all information related to what they call the "unauthorized disclosure of Mr. Shieh’s personally identifiable information."

"Brown University’s decision to file disciplinary charges against students like Alex Shieh, simply for looking into the school’s bloated bureaucracy and rising tuition costs, is a clear act of retaliation," Fitzgerald, who signed the letter, told Fox News Digital in a statement. "The Committee shares serious concerns about this troubling response and remains committed to conducting rigorous oversight into whether Brown University and other Ivy League institutions are engaging in anticompetitive pricing practices."

In a statement, Brian Clark, vice president for News and Strategic Campus Communications told Fox News Digital that the university "has been cooperating with extensive requests for information from the U.S. House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary since the initial inquiry arrived in April, demonstrating that we have and continue to make decisions on tuition and financial aid independently as part of our commitment to making sure that no student’s family socioeconomic circumstances prevent them from accessing the benefits of a Brown education." 

Clark added, "We’ll continue to provide any responses to follow-up requests directly to the committees."