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Harvard University on Monday said it is rejecting a series of demands made by President Donald Trump‘s administration to change its policies or risk losing its federal funding.
“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,” university president Alan M. Garber wrote in a letter.
“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 continued. “The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.”
Harvard’s position sets itself up for a major showdown with Trump, who has demanded that the university cut its diversity, equity and inclusion programs and make changes to certain programs that his administration feels have fueled “antisemitic harassment.”
“Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration,” lawyers for Harvard wrote in a letter to administration officials.
The Trump administration announced in March that it was reviewing approximately $9 billion in federal grants and contracts given to Harvard as part of its investigation into how institutions have tackled antisemitism.
The administration also asked that Harvard to make changes to its admissions process and also work with immigration officials.
The move by Harvard makes it the first university to fight back against the Trump administration over funding threats.
Harvard’s decision comes after Columbia University, another Ivy League institution, recently agreed to meet a series of demands in order to obtain $400 million in restored federal grant and contract funding that the administration canceled last month.
Columbia announced that it had agreed to bring onboard nearly 40 “special officers” who would have the power to remove individuals from its campus or arrest them, if needed. It also agreed to ban face masks on campus for the intent of withholding identification, although exceptions are carved out for religious or health reasons. And it agreed to tap a new new senior vice provost to oversee the university’s Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies.
A week after agreeing to Trump’s demands, the interim head of Columbia resigned.
The post With $9 billion on the line, Harvard tells Trump to back off appeared first on Business Insider.
