Harvard University has positioned itself as the “face of resistance” against what some contend is an over-reaching Trump administration, which demanded the Ivy League institution apply sweeping reforms to its admissions, hiring and curriculum policies and procedures to stay eligible for billions of dollars in federal funding.
On Monday campus leaders filed a lawsuit “to halt the funding freeze because it is unlawful and beyond the government’s authority,” Harvard President Alan Garber announced.
Calling the administration’s reform demands “illegal,” Garber stated it is trying to threaten and strong-arm the school into compliance by adding to an initial freeze of $2.2 billion in funding an additional $1 billion. He also cited the administration’s threat to not allow the school to enroll international students, and its suggestion that the government would yank Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
“These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world,” Garber stated. “…The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting.”
The 51-page complaint argues Trump officials have not identified “any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation.”
“…Under whatever name, the Government has ceased the flow of funds to Harvard as part of its pressure campaign to force Harvard to submit to the Government’s control over its academic programs.”
“That, in itself, violates Harvard’s constitutional rights,” the complaint argues. “But the Government has also failed to engage in the statutorily mandated process Congress required under Title VI before funds are cut off, which provides independent grounds for declaring
the freeze unlawful.”
The so-called demand letter, dated April 11, called for a variety of reforms such as governance and leadership reforms to reduce “the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship,” as well as to reduce forms of “governance bloat.”
It also stated Harvard “must immediately shutter all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, offices, committees, positions, and initiatives, under whatever name, and stop all DEI-based policies, including DEI-based disciplinary or speech control policies.”
The letter also called for merit-based reforms in admissions and hiring practices, including “international admissions reform … to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.”
The April 11 letter reportedly took a more aggressive stance than some in the Trump administration wanted and was allegedly sent in error and without authorization, the New York Times reported.
The letter was penned by members of a new Trump panel called the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“People close to Harvard say the task force is now escalating the fight to protect its own reputation. The government’s demand letter to Harvard received blowback after the university released it, including from some on the right who publicly said it was overreach,” the Journal reported.
“Harvard’s Monday release of the letter positioned the university as a face of resistance against the Trump administration and has presented the task force with a playbook far different than Columbia’s, which quickly agreed to their demands to try to recover $400 million in federal funding,” it reported.
MORE: Feds warn Harvard may lose ability to enroll international students
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Pictures of Harvard’s campus and President Donald Trump / montage created with various YouTube screenshots
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