The Trump administration issued a letter to Harvard on Thursday outlining the “next step right now” the agency must take to “maintain ongoing financial relations with the U.S. government,” Boston globe Report and Internal Advanced ED Confirmed.
The final appearance of the University was informed by three days after the President’s Joint Task Force’s fight against anti-Semitism, notifying the University of the University for its alleged failure to protect Jewish students and teachers from discrimination. If the case follows other universities’ precedents, Harvard and its member healthcare institutions could lose up to $9 billion in federal grants and contracts if they fail to comply.
Sources say the move is less driven than a real focus on anti-Semitism on campus, rather than the government’s desire to abolish diversity efforts, which it believes is too “wake up” in higher education institutions. This week alone, the government pulled funds from Brown and Princeton University. Prior to that, it targeted the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia, and opened dozens of civil rights surveys at other colleges, all in progress.
Many of the task force’s requests for Harvard reflect the mandate submitted to Colombia last month, including the task of reforming anti-Semitist accountability programs on campus, ban masks for non-medical purposes, reviewing certain academic departments and reshaping admissions policies. The main difference is: Columbia’s letter is targeted at specific departments and programs, while Harvard University is more extensive.
For example, while letters received by Colombia call for a specific Middle East research sector to be placed under takeover, Harvard’s letter is more commonly referred to as “oversight and accountability for biased programs” [and departments] This fuels anti-Semitism. ”
Internal Advanced ED A copy of the Harvard letter was requested, which refused to be sent, but confirmed they had received it. Internal Advanced ED Later, a copy from other sources was received.
Some advocates of higher education speculate that the latest demands of the Trump administration are intentionally vague and hope that universities can surpass them.
“What I learned from all kinds of experiences with advanced law is that being general in legal documents,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the U.S. Board of Education. He added that Trump’s “open” letters “started to look like fishing adventures.” “‘We want you to open everyone to us so that we can determine how you work.'”
But conservative senior ED analysts believe that even the expanded requirements are reasonable.
“Many of them are very reasonable – demonstrations within academic buildings, requiring participants and demonstrations to identify themselves in time when asked, promising anti-discrimination policies, intellectual diversity and institutional neutrality.”
Nevertheless, he raised questions about how certain authorizations in the letter would be implemented.
“When you see this in the context of the federal government trying to use funding as leverage to force some of these reforms, that’s where people may get some reasonable concern,” he said. “For example, trying to ensure diversity of perspectives is a highly commendable goal, but if the federal government tries to… decide what constitutes diversity of perspectives, then a case against the First Amendment can be brought.”
What does this letter say?
The demand raised by Harvard on Thursday is largely targeting the same aspects of senior ED that Trump has been focusing on since taking office in January.
Some centres on pro-Palestinian protests, such as demands to be held accountable for anti-Semitism programs, reform disciplinary procedures, and review all “anti-Semitism rules violations” since October 7, 2023.
Others focus on enforcing Trump’s interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on affirmative action; the university must make “lasting” performance-based changes to its admissions and recruitment practices and close all diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which the administration believes will promote “mutual judgment” based on rough racial and identity stereotypes.
The letter was signed by the same three working groups who signed the Colombia request letter: Josh Gruenbaum, Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner; Sean Keveney, Acting General Counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services; and Thomas Wheeler, Acting General Counsel for the Department of Education.
The most notable difference in Harvard’s letter is that the task force requires “complete cooperation” with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The department and its immigration and customs law enforcement agencies have been arresting and revoking visas for international students and scholars, and the government says they support terrorist groups by participating in pro-Palestinian protests.
Will Harvard throw?
Harvard seems to be taking steps to comply. The university placed a pro-Palestine student group on probation Wednesday. A week ago, a dean removed two top leaders from the Center for Middle East Studies, a study was accused of biased about teaching in Israel.
A letter from university president Alan Garber to the campus community also suggests a possible surrender.
“If this funding is stopped, it will stop life-saving research and endanger important scientific research and innovation,” Gaber wrote after the task force’s review. “We will interact with members of the federal government task force to combat anti-Semitism.”
But Fansmith pointed out that such action may not be enough to predict whether Harvard will completely acquiesce to the Trump administration’s demands.
“If you look at all of these agencies over the last two years, they’ve been making a lot of changes to policies, procedures, people and everything else,” he said. “A lot of things are happening and it’s at speed before this administration takes office and starts sending letters.”
Harvard is one of the top three universities that the House Education Committee and Workforce Committee baked on campus in December 2023. Not long after, then-President Claudine Gay was the first black woman to lead Harvard University. Since then, the university has been working to make changes at the campus level.
Fansmith and Cooper both pointed out that Trump’s mission on the course is the most likely task to face the opposition, as is the case in Colombia.
A week after the Trump administration proposed the final atum, Columbia succumbed and agreed to all the demands: the university refused to place its Eastern Research department in takeover status, a form of academic probation involving the hiring of external department chairs. Instead, it put the department under internal scrutiny and announced it would hire a new senior vice provost to oversee the academic program.
“You need to make sure Jewish students are not harassed,” Cooper said. But “the place that goes over the line is when the federal government tells the university … ‘It’s how you have to appoint someone to include the academic department in the receiver,”’
Regardless of Harvard’s response, it seems possible: There is more money to freeze.
“A lot of people expect Colombia to raise legal challenges, and when that doesn’t happen, that may give the government some courage to pursue these other institutions,” Cooper said. But, faster, “one of the institutions might say, ‘We’re not going to reform.'”
“I don’t have a good guess about which agency, but I hope we may see the lawsuit at some point,” he added.
