Harvard refuses to ‘yield’ to Trump’s demands over DEI and antisemitism, with $9bn in funding at stake
15 April 2025, 00:43
The president of Harvard University has said it will not ‘surrender its independence’ as Donald Trump threatens to cut $9bn in funding to the prestigious university.
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Harvard University has announced it will not comply with a list of demands from the Trump administration as part of its crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses.
The Trump administration had previously sent the university a letter saying they will conduct a review of federal contracts to the university, worth $255.6m (£193.8m), as well as grants worth almost $9bn (£6.8bn).
The letter, sent to Harvard on Friday, said their list of demands forms part of their campaign to “root out antisemitism”, as well as alleged civil rights violations.
Antisemitism has seen an uptick in the US in the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October, 2023, in which they killed more than 1,100 people and took some 250 hostages into Gaza. Israel’s war on Gaza has since killed more than 50,000 people and caused a humanitarian crisis.
But as part of their demands, the government wants Harvard to ban face masks on campus, a move which appeared to target pro-Palestinian protesters.
The Trump administration has sought the deportation of several students who participated in pro-Palestine protests – despite there not being any evidence of them being linked to antisemitism or pro-Hamas activities.
The letter includes a demand that Harvard cooperates with immigration authorities, and to report international students to federal bodies if they do not comply with university policies, setting the stage for more deportations.
They are also pressuring the university to stop recognising or funding "any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence or illegal harassment".
Another demand is for Harvard to close its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which they say teach students and staff “to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes.”
The letter called for broad government and leadership reforms, and that Harvard should institute what the Trump administration calls ‘merit-based’ admissions, as well as an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity.
Harvard president Alan Garber, in a letter to the Harvard community on Monday, said the demands violated the university's First Amendment rights and "exceed the statutory limits of the government's authority under Title VI", which prohibits discrimination against students based on their race, colour or national origin.
"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," Mr Garber wrote, adding that the university had carried out extensive reforms to address antisemitism.
"These ends will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate," he wrote.
"The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community."
The demands on Harvard are part of a broader push of using taxpayer dollars to pressure major academic institutions to comply with President Donald Trump's political agenda and to influence campus policy.
The administration has also argued that universities allowed what it considered to be antisemitism to go unchecked during campus protests last year against Israel's war in Gaza. The schools deny it.
Harvard is one of several Ivy League schools targeted in a pressure campaign by the administration, which also has paused federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, Brown and Princeton to force compliance with its agenda. Harvard's demand letter is similar to the one that prompted changes at Columbia University under the threat of billions of dollars in cuts.
The demands from the Trump administration prompted a group of alumni to write to university leaders calling for it to "legally contest and refuse to comply with unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance".
"Harvard stood up today for the integrity, values and freedoms that serve as the foundation of higher education," said Anurima Bhargava, one of those behind the letter. "Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformative growth will not yield to bullying and authoritarian whims."
It also sparked a protest over the weekend from members of the Harvard community and residents of Cambridge in Massachusetts and a lawsuit from the American Association of University Professors on Friday challenging the cuts.
In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argue that the Trump administration has failed to follow steps required under Title VI before it starts cutting funds, and giving notice of the cuts to the university and Congress.
"These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of non-compliance with federal law. Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the university to punishing disfavoured speech," plaintiffs wrote.