The University of Harvard said on Monday that it has rejected the policy changes requested by the Trump administration, making the first university to refuse to comply with its demands and create a clash between the federal government and the richest university.
Other universities have pushed the administration’s intervention back to higher education. But Harvard’s response, which called on the demands of Trump’s administration, marked a significant shift in the tone for the most influential school of the nation, which has been criticized in recent weeks to record the pressure of Trump’s administration.
A letter sent by Trump’s administration to Harvard on Friday on Friday to reduce the university the power of students and members of the school in the University affairs. To report foreign students who commit violations read immediately to the federal authorities. And to bring an external party to ensure that each academic department is “different view”, including steps. The administration did not determine what it meant with the diversity of the view, but generally referred to the search for a number of political views, including conservative perspectives.
“No government – no matter which party is in power – should dictate which private universities they can teach, which they can admit and hire and which areas of study and research can follow,” said Alan Garber, President of Harvard.
Since taking over his duties in January, Trump’s administration has aggressively targeting universities, saying that he is investigating dozens of schools as he moves to eliminate the efforts of diversity and what he says is the unholy anti -Semitism. Employees have suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds for research at universities across the country.
The administration has received particular interest in a short list of the most important schools of the nation. Officials discussed the overthrow of a high profile university as part of their campaign to repeat higher education. They first got to the University of Columbia, then to other members of the Ivy League, including Harvard.
Harvard, for his part, has been under pressure from his own students and the school to be more dynamic to resist the violation of Trump’s administration at the University and higher education.
Trump’s administration said in March that it had examined about $ 256 million in federal contracts for Harvard and an additional $ 8.7 billion in what it described as a “years of grant”. The announcement continued to indicate that Harvard had not done enough to limit anti -Semitism on campus. At that time, it was unclear about what the university could do to satisfy Trump’s concerns.
Last month, more than 800 faculty members in Harvard signed a letter, urging the university to “put a coordinated opposition to these anti -democratic attacks”.
The university seemed to take a step in this direction on Monday. In his letter rejecting the administration’s demands, Dr. Garber suggested that Harvard had a minimal alternative.
“The university will not deliver its independence nor will it give up its constitutional rights,” he wrote. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow it to be taken over by the federal government.”
The government’s letter to Harvard on Friday demanded an excellent set of changes that will reshape the university and give an unprecedented degree of control of Harvard’s business to the federal government. The changes would have violated the principles that are kept dear in campuses, including academic freedom.
Some of the actions requested by Trump’s administration for Harvard were:
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Dividing all recruitment data with Trump’s administration and undergoing its recruitment checks, while “reforms are applied”, at least until 2028.
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Providing all import data to the Federal Government, including information on both the rejected and the candidates, a race classified, average, average grade and performance in standard tests.
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Immediately close any planning associated with diversity, equality and integration.
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A revision of the academic programs reported by the Trump administration have “strong files for anti -Semitism”, including the placement of certain departments and programs under external control. The list includes the School of Divinity, the School of Education, the School of Public Health and the Medical School, among many others.
The demands suggest that the federal government wanted to invade processes that universities prefer to have control, such as how they admit their incoming classes. He also touched on issues that conservative activists used as cudgels against academics. The categories of plagiarism, for example, are part of the reasons why former Harvard President Claudine Gay was forced to resign.
“Harvard has failed to respond to both spiritual and political rights that justify the federal investment in recent years,” Trump’s letter said.
Last month, after Trump’s administration stripped $ 400 million in federal funds from the University of Columbia, Columbia agreed to significant concessions requested by the federal government. He agreed to place the Middle East Department of Studies under different supervision and to create a new 36 “special officers” security force authorized to arrest and remove people from campus.
The demands at Harvard were different and much more extensive, touching many aspects of the University’s basic activities.
Spokesman Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, who had challenged university leaders, including Dr. Gay, on claims that they had been anti -Semitism in the campus, said the Trump administration would have to “Defund”.
“It is time to completely cut off the funding of US taxpayers to this institution,” he wrote in a social media position on Monday.
In Harvard’s response on Monday, he said he had already made significant changes in the last 15 months to improve the campus climate and deal with anti -Semitism, including students who violate university policies, dedicating resources to programs promoting programs.
Harvard said it was unfortunate that the administration ignored the university’s efforts and moved instead of violating school freedom in illegal ways.
Harvard’s strong attitude on Monday was welcomed throughout Higher Education, as universities had sparked wide criticism of failing to resist Mr Trump’s attacks more aggressively.
Harvard himself has been on fire for a series of moves in recent months that the school members said to determine Mr Trump, including recruiting a pressure company with close ties with the president and promoting the leaders of the Middle East Schools Schools.
A group of Harvard schools filed a lawsuit last week, seeking to prevent the administration from threatening to withdraw federal funding from the university. Nikolaou Bowie, a professor of law and secretary-lecturer of Harvard’s chapter of the American Union of Universities, the team submitted by the costume, applauded Harvard’s rejection from the demands of Trump’s administration.
“I am grateful for the courage and leadership of President Garber,” Dr. Bowie said. “His answer acknowledges that there is no blackmail negotiation.”
Ted Mitchell, president of the US Council for Education, which represents many colleges and universities in Washington, said Harvard’s approach could encourage other campus leaders who said they were “breathed”.
“This gives more room for others to get up, partly because if Harvard had not, he would have told everyone else,” you don’t have the opportunity, “said Dr. Mitchell, a former president of Occidental College.” This gives people a sense of strong. “
He described Harvard’s response as “a roadmap for how the institutions could oppose administration in this invasion of institutional decision -making”. He added: “Whether it is anti -Semitism or value -based recruitment or value -based attraction, the basic texture of the academic business must be decided by the University, not by the government.”
Ethan Kelly, 22, senior in Harvard from Maryland, said Monday’s message by Dr. Garber was relieved. He said that he and many of his classmates were concerned that their school would break the demands of Trump’s administration.
“There was so much concern about the fact that Harvard would fold under political pressure, especially with how aggressive Trump’s administration was trying to control higher education,” Mr Kelly said. Seeing Dr. Garber pull a clear line, he added, it was something “that matters”.
In a relative development, nine major research universities and three university associations have sued Trump on Monday to restore $ 400 million to funding that the Energy Department said it was reduced last week.
In a statement, Michael I. Kotlikoff, president of Cornell University, one of the schools involved in the treatment, said that the investigation was at stake was “vital to national security, American construction, economic competitiveness and progress for energy independence”.
Other schools mentioned as the plaintiffs were Brown University, Caltech, the University of Illinois, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the Michigan state, Princeton and the University of Rochester. The Energy Department said it would dramatically reduce the general costs or “indirect” costs associated with grants.
The report was contributed by Crown; Alan And Miles Herszenhorn.
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