Harvard University is 140 years older than the US and has donations greater than GDP in nearly 100 countries, educating eight US presidents. So if the agency is going to stand up to the Trump administration's academia war, Harvard is at the top of the list.
Harvard on Monday forced it to inject energy into other universities across the country in fear of the president's rage, refusing the Trump administration's demands for employment, admissions and curriculum. Some commentators have also stepped back by the Harvard decision to law firms, courts, media and other White House targets.
“This has important and important implications,” said J. Michael Luttig, a well-known former federal court of appeals judge who is respected by many conservatives. “This should be a turning point for the president's rampage against the American system.”
Michael S. Ross, president of Wesleyan University and a rare White House critic among university administrators, welcomed Harvard's decision. “To change courses when the institution meets resistance is what happens when the resistance is met,” he said. “It's like when the bully stopped on his truck.”
Within hours of Harvard's decision, federal officials said they would freeze multi-year grants to the university, along with a $60 million contract.
This is just a portion of the $9 billion in federal funds received by Harvard University, which will send $7 billion to 11 affiliated hospitals at universities in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, including General Boston, Massachusetts, Children's Hospital, and the Dana Farmer Cancer Institute. The remaining $2 billion will go directly to research grants for Harvard, including space exploration, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and tuberculosis.
It was not immediately clear what programs the funding freeze would affect.
Harvard, the wealthiest and oldest university in the country, is the most prominent purpose of the administration's campaign to wipe out ideology that has “wake up” from American university campuses. Administration requests include sharing employment data with the government and bringing in external parties to ensure that each academic department is “diverse in perspectives.”
Faced with a $400 million loss in federal funding, Columbia University agreed to a major concession it requested last month.
In a letter Monday, Harvard University President Alan M. Gerber refused to stop. “Neither Harvard University nor any other private universities can allow them to take over to the federal government,” he wrote.
The fight against the administration with Harvard, which gave $53.2 billion in 2024, is what President Trump and powerful White House aide Stephen Miller hope for. Harvard is a big game in the administration's efforts to break what liberalism considers to have higher education. The famous court battle gives the White House a platform to continue to argue that the left has become synonymous with anti-Semitism, elitism and the oppression of free speech.
Steven Pinker, a well-known Harvard psychologist who is also president of Harvard's Academic Freedom Council, said Monday that the government's enforcement of diversity in university perspectives is “truly Orwellians” and self-contradictory. He said that would lead to absurdity as well.
“Does this government force the Faculty of Economics to hire Marxists or Jungians in the Faculty of Psychology? He said.
Harvard has not escaped the issue of shaking campuses nationwide after the Hamas-led attack in Israel on October 7, 2023. In his letter, Dr. Gerber said the university had taken steps to address anti-Semitism, support diverse perspectives, and protect freedom of speech and opposition.
These same points were made in letters to the administration from two lawyers representing Harvard, William A. Burke and Robert K. Herr.
Burke is also an external ethics advisor to the Trump organization and represented law firms Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in the deal he recently reached with the Trump administration.
Full, who worked for the Justice Department during Trump's first term, was a special adviser who investigated the handling of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s confidential documents and was called “an elderly man with poor memory.”
Both lawyers understand the legal work of the current administration and the expertise of the benefits to Harvard.
“Harvard University remains open to dialogue about what the university did and what it did to improve the experience of all members of the community,” Burck and Hur wrote in a letter, addressing the advice of the Department of Education's representative general and to internal committee members. General Services Bureau. “However, Harvard is not prepared to agree to any demands beyond this administration or its legal authority.”
Last year, New York Republican Elise Stefanik, who held hearings investigating anti-Semitism on university campuses, including Harvard, was withered in a social media post.
“Harvard University has achieved its status as a microcosm of moral and academic corruption in higher education,” writes Stephanik, a Harvard graduate. She said, “It's time to completely cut off US taxpayer funds for this institution that could not stand the founded motto Veritas.
Potential actions could include nonprofit status investigations and further cancellation of visas for international students, but it is unclear how the Trump administration can measure resistance against Harvard.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council of Education, said Harvard's actions were essential.
“If Harvard had not taken this position,” he said, “it would have been nearly impossible for other agencies to do so.”
