Harvard has been under increasing pressure from the Trump administration this month. Back on April 3rd, the administration sent a letter making it clear that Harvard’s federal funding was contingent on the university’s willingness to make changes including the elimination of DEI policies.
The Trump administration demanded on Thursday that Harvard eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programming and ban masks at protests to avoid losing its federal funding, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Crimson…
The letter, which came three days after three federal agencies pledged to review nearly $9 billion in federal grants and contracts to Harvard and affiliated institutions, asked Harvard to review and alter programs it accused of fueling antisemitism. It did not name the programs in question.
Last Friday, the Trump administration sent another letter which it described as an outline for an agreement in principle on many reforms the school would need to make in order to maintain its government funding.
Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment. But we appreciate your expression of commitment to repairing those failures and welcome your collaboration in restoring the University to its promise. We therefore present the below provisions as the basis for an agreement in principle that will maintain Harvard’s financial relationship with the federal government…
- Governance and leadership reforms. By August 2025, Harvard must make meaningful governance reform and restructuring to make possible major change consistent with this letter, including: fostering clear lines of authority and accountability; empowering tenured professors and senior leadership, and, from among the tenured professoriate and senior leadership, exclusively those most devoted to the scholarly mission of the University and committed to the changes indicated in this letter; reducing the power held by students and untenured faculty; reducing the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship; and reducing forms of governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization that interfere with the possibility of the reforms indicated in this letter.
- Merit-Based Hiring Reform. By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices among faculty, staff, and leadership. Such adoption and implementation must be durable and demonstrated through structural and personnel changes. All existing and prospective faculty shall be reviewed for plagiarism and Harvard’s plagiarism policy consistently enforced. All hiring and related data shall be shared with the federal government and subjected to a comprehensive audit by the federal government during the period in which reforms are being implemented, which shall be at least until the end of 2028.
- Merit-Based Admissions Reform. By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement merit-based admissions policies and cease all preferences based on race, color, national origin, or proxies thereof, throughout its undergraduate program, each graduate program individually, each of its professional schools, and other programs. Such adoption and implementation must be durable and demonstrated through structural and personnel changes. All admissions data shall be shared with the federal government and subjected to a comprehensive audit by the federal government—and non-individualized, statistical information regarding admissions shall be made available to the public, including information about rejected and admitted students broken down by race, color, national origin, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests—during the period in which reforms are being implemented, which shall be at least until the end of 2028. During this same period, the dean of admissions for each program or school must sign a public statement after each admissions cycle certifying that these rules have been upheld.
- International Admissions Reform. By August 2025, the University must reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism. Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security and State Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation. As above, these reforms must be durable and demonstrated through structural and personnel changes; comprehensive throughout all of Harvard’s programs; and, during the reform period, shared with the federal government for audit, shared on a non-individualized basis with the public, and certified by deans of admissions…
- Discontinuation of DEI. The University must immediately shutter all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, offices, committees, positions, and initiatives, under whatever name, and stop all DEI-based policies, including DEI-based disciplinary or speech control policies, under whatever name; demonstrate that it has done so to the satisfaction of the federal government; and demonstrate to the satisfaction of the federal government that these reforms are durable and effective through structural and personnel changes. By August 2025, the University must submit to the government a report—certified for accuracy—that confirms these reforms.
Believe it or not, that’s only about half of the demands the Trump administration made in the letter. You can read it all here. But Harvard has also been under tremendous pressure both internally and externally from academics who want the school to stand up to the Trump administration. There was a big protest just off campus Saturday.
More than a thousand people gathered on Cambridge Common on Saturday to demand that Harvard stand up to the latest threats coming from the Donald Trump administration. Late last month, the administration threatened to freeze nearly $9 billion in federal grants, part of an attack on elite universities including Princeton and Columbia ostensibly to weed out antisemitism on campus.
City councillor Burhan Azeem, who helped organize the protest, said that the three main sponsors, the American Association of University Professors, the Cambridge City Council and 50501, which has been organizing nationwide protests monthly in all 50 states, came together and organized the event in just a few days. “We are really encouraging Harvard to stand up to Trump” at a moment a decision is imminent, he said.
Other reports said there were closer to 500 people but it’s clearly a group pressing Harvard to defy Trump.
Harvard faces a choice on how to respond to Trump’s demands & we want to ensure that Harvard stands up for its values and our community!
“Stand Up, Harvard!” rally is this Sat 4/12 at noon on Cambridge Common. Stand together for democracy & academic freedom! pic.twitter.com/xrYZ57Jw90
— HUCTW, AFSCME 3650 (@HUCTW) April 12, 2025
Today, Harvard announced that it would not accept the Trump administration proposals.
Late Friday night, the administration issued an updated and expanded list of demands, warning that Harvard must comply if we intend to “maintain [our] financial relationship with the federal government.” It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner. Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.
I encourage you to read the letter to gain a fuller understanding of the unprecedented demands being made by the federal government to control the Harvard community. They include requirements to “audit” the viewpoints of our student body, faculty, staff, and to “reduc[e] the power” of certain students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their ideological views. We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.
The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government. It violates Harvard’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.
In the long term this may be the best approach for Harvard as it keeps the government’s control at arms length. In the short run it’s also likely to cost them billions of dollars in funding. Harvard can’t have it both ways, at least not for the next few years.
On Friday, the same day the letter to Harvard went out, the American Association of University Professors filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration. The group is looking for another judge to veto the President before he even takes any action.
The suit, filed in the Federal District Court in Massachusetts, seeks a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from cutting the funds.
“This action challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech on a university campus,” the lawsuit said.
What Harvard has going for it is an endowment of more than $53 billion, which it can rely on to make up for funds that are cut if it chooses to do so. We’ll have to wait and see how and when the Trump administration responds and whether or not some judge issues another TRO in this situation.
