Harvard Feud With Trump Deepens as US Punches Back at Garber (1)

Harvard University President Alan Garber has twice publicly rebuked the Trump administration for threatening the school’s independence. Both times the US government has punched back.

The latest missive came less than 24 hours after Garber wrote to Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Monday, denying allegations of partisan political bias and warning that government “overreach” is threatening key freedoms.

On Tuesday, the White House’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said eight US agencies terminated $450 million in grants to Harvard — on top of the more than $2.2 billion in funding that’s already been revoked over its handling of discrimination on campus.

“Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination,” the task force wrote. “This is not leadership; it is cowardice. And it’s not academic freedom; it’s institutional disenfranchisement.”

Pedestrians walk through Harvard Yard.

Photographer: Sophie Park/Bloomberg

The latest escalation underscores what has become one of the highest-profile standoffs in President Donald Trump’s efforts to remake much of the US economic and cultural landscape. The funding cuts at Harvard are already imperiling research projects as well as the broader ecosystem that thrives off their existence and helps drive the Massachusetts economy.

“This is a way for the administration to turn the temperature higher to maybe bring Harvard to the negotiating table,” said Raymond Brescia, a professor at Albany Law School following the dispute. “Each time Harvard proclaims that it is standing by its values, the Trump administration seems to escalate pressure.”

While Harvard has sued the Trump administration over what it deems “unconstitutional demands,” the university has tried to walk a fine line of defending its right to control academic and campus policies and also agreeing with the White House that reforms need to be made. Garber’s letter to McMahon outlined recent changes at Harvard, including revisions to disciplinary procedures, actions to combat antisemitism and efforts to encourage freedom of thought and expression.

It hasn’t worked.

The White House has also gone after colleges including Columbia, Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern, expanding its criticisms to their diversity efforts, but it has focused its sights in recent weeks on Harvard and its alleged Democratic leanings. In addition to the funding cuts, Trump has repeatedly suggested the Internal Revenue Service revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, citing political bias.

A representative for Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest funding cuts. The school’s efforts to embrace a variety of viewpoints are “undermined and threatened by the federal government’s overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities and its continuing disregard of Harvard’s compliance with the law,” Garber wrote in his letter to McMahon.

‘Economic Consequences’

While Harvard is the richest US university with a more than $50 billion endowment, that won’t shield it from the financial impact of the Trump administration’s actions, said Mark Williams, a finance professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

“Harvard is being hit by a confluence of political points that have lasting economic consequences,” he said.

The Trump administration has assailed Harvard since taking office, blasting the school for failing to protect Jewish students on campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel. The government task force slammed Harvard in its letter on Tuesday for failing to confront “pervasive race discrimination and antisemitic harassment.”

In particular, the task force called out the Harvard Law Review’s award of a $65,000 fellowship to a protester who faced criminal charges for assaulting a Jewish student on campus, a decision that the government claims was “reviewed and approved” by a faculty committee.

Read more: Harvard Blocked by White House From New Research Funding

“There is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus, and by prioritizing appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support,” officials wrote in the statement.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers unveiled legislation on Monday that would significantly increase taxes on endowments for the nation’s wealthiest universities, including Harvard. Under the bill, Harvard and four other schools would pay a rate of 21% on their net investment income, compared with the current 1.4%.

Read more: MIT, Yale Face Endowment Tax Hike While Notre Dame Scores Break

The multidimensional assault on Harvard’s finances also threatens to blow a hole in a Massachusetts economy that thrives off its existence.

More than 18,700 Massachusetts residents, including professors but also research assistants, lab technicians and administrators, work for Harvard, making it the state’s fourth-largest employer, according to a 2023 report from the school. The state’s life sciences and health-care industries also thrive on the talent pool cultivated by the university and top-tier peers such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“You and I have a shared interest in ensuring that American universities continue to be global leaders in innovative and life-saving research that benefits all Americans, boosts the national economy, and serves the country’s interests,” Garber wrote in the letter to McMahon.

(Updates with law professor’s comment in sixth paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected the scope of grants impacted.)

--With assistance from David Voreacos.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Greg Ryan in Boston at gryan49@bloomberg.net;
Janet Lorin in New York at jlorin@bloomberg.net;
Akayla Gardner in Washington at agardner81@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net

Brooke Sutherland, Brendan Case

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