The University of Harvard is 140 years old than the United States, has a donation greater than GDP about 100 countries and has trained eight US presidents. So if an institution was to withstand Trump’s war in academia, Harvard would be at the top of the list.
Harvard made it strong on Monday in a way that was injected into other universities across the country that feared the president’s anger, rejecting the demands of Trump’s administration for hiring, imports and curriculum. Some commentators have arrived so much that the Harvard decision will reinforce law firms, courts, media and other White House targets to promote as well.
“This is of great importance,” said J. Michael Luttig, a prominent former Judge of the Federal Court of Appeal who was respected by many conservatives. “This should be the turning point in the spread of the president against US institutions.”
Michael S. Roth, who is the president of the University of Wesleyan and a rare White House critic between university administrators, welcomed Harvard’s decision. “What happens when the institutions is that they change the course when they meet resistance,” he said. “It’s like when a slayer stops in his traces.”
Within a few hours of Harvard’s decision, federal officials said they would freeze $ 2.2 billion in perennial grants at the university, along with a $ 60 million contract.
This is a fraction of $ 9 billion in federal funding received by Harvard, with $ 7 billion in the 11 hospitals at the University in Boston and Cambridge, Mass. The remaining $ 2 billion goes to research grants directly to Harvard, including space exploration, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and tuberculosis.
It was not immediately clear which programs would affect the funding.
Harvard, the richest and oldest university of the Nation, is the most important subject of the administration’s campaign to clear his ideology “awakened” by America’s campuses. The demands of the administration include the exchange of recruitment data with the government and attracting an external party to ensure that each academic department is “different”.
The University of Columbia, which suffered a loss of $ 400 million in federal funding, has agreed last month to significant concessions requested by the government, including the establishment of a new supervision of the Middle East, South Asia and Asia.
In a letter Monday, Harvard President Alan M. Garber refused to stand down. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow it to be taken over by the federal government,” he wrote.
The administration’s fight with Harvard, who had a $ 53.2 billion donation in 2024, is what President Trump and Stephen Miller, a strong White House assistant, want to have. In the administration’s attempt to break what it sees as a maze of higher education, Harvard is a big game. A high profile battle would give the White House a platform to continue to argue that the Left has become synonymous with anti -Semitism, elitism and the suppression of Freedom of speech.
Steven Pinker, a prominent Harvard psychologist, who is also chairman of the Harvard Academic Council Council, said on Monday that he was “truly Orbellian” and confidence to have the diversity of the government for his view. He said he would also lead to absurdities.
“Will this government force the Department of Finance to hire Marxists or the Department of Psychology to hire the Jungians or, on this issue, for the Medical School to hire homeopaths or native therapists?” He said.
Harvard has not escaped the problems that ran to campuses at national level after Hamas’ leadership attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023. In his letter, Dr. Garber said the university had taken measures to address anti -Semitism and anti -Semitism.
These same points were made in a letter to the administration by two lawyers representing Harvard, William A. Burck and Robert K. Hur.
Mr Burck is also an external ethical adviser to Trump’s organization and represented the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in the deal that recently reached Trump’s administration.
Mr Hur, who worked at the Ministry of Justice in Mr Trump’s first term, was the special adviser who investigated the handling of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. From the classified documents and described him as “an elderly man with bad memory”, acquiring Mr Biden.
Both lawyers understand the legal work of the current administration, the know -how of the benefit to Harvard.
“Harvard remains open to dialogue on what the university has done and plans to do, improve the experience of every member of its community,” Mr Burck and Mr. Hur wrote in the letter, addressing the general advice of the Departments of Education and Health and Human The General Services Management. “But Harvard is not prepared to agree to demand that he exceed his legitimate power or any administration.”
Spokesman Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican, who audited last year who explored anti -Semitism in College campuses, including Harvard, ran into a social position of the media.
“The University of Harvard has rightly won its position as an epitome of moral and academic sepsis in higher education,” wrote Harvard graduate. He added that “it is time to completely cut off the funding of US taxpayers to this institution that failed to respond to its founding slogan Veritas.” Defund Harvard “.
It is not clear what other Trump administration measure could take against Harvard for his resistance, although possible actions could include investigating the non -profit regime and further cancellations of international students’ visas.
The President of the US Education Council, Ted Mitchell, said Harvard’s action was necessary.
“If Harvard had not taken this attitude,” he said, “it would be almost impossible for other institutions to do so.”
