Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has made a major push to put America’s elite universities on notice over political ideology. But the groundwork for the White House’s stronger stance was laid more than a year earlier.

The president of Harvard on Wednesday defended the university’s decision to sue the Trump administration, adding that the institution “cannot compromise” on core principles like the First Amendment. Harvard took legal action against the Trump administration on Monday over the government’s decision to freeze over $2 billion in federal funding meant for the university after it refused to make the reforms it ordered.

Harvard president Alan Garber said Wednesday during an interview with NBC News that he had no choice but to fight the Trump administration over its decision to pull funding.