Harvard University, battered by a devastating conflict with the Trump administration that has jeopardized its elite standing, is facing a problem as it weighs a possible truce with President Trump: how to strike a deal without compromising its values or appearing to have capitulated.
The conundrum has bedeviled law firms, tech and media companies and even one of the school’s Ivy League peers. According to three people familiar with the university’s deliberations, it is now shaping internal debates around the school’s freshly resurrected talks with the government. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing negotiations that are supposed to be private.
Unlike many other powerful institutions that have struck bargains with Mr. Trump, Harvard, the nation’s oldest and richest university, spent much of this spring as the vanguard of resistance to the White House, credited by academic leaders, alumni and pro-democracy activists for fighting the administration and serving as a formidable barrier against authoritarianism.
Despite a series of legal wins against the administration, though, Harvard officials concluded in recent weeks that those victories alone might be insufficient to protect the university.
The internal discussions at Harvard are particularly fraught because among the sticking points with the Trump White House are issues of admissions, hiring and viewpoint diversity. Universities regard admissions and hiring as especially critical to academic freedom — a cornerstone that government oversight could dilute, compromising their independence and infringing on constitutional protections for speech. And Harvard officials are well aware that a deal with the Trump administration on anything related to the school’s academic independence could invite lasting anger from an already anxious faculty.
Also hanging over a potential deal between the president and Harvard are the ones that some of the most powerful institutions in the country made after Mr. Trump’s election in November.
One by one, whether it was a law firm seeking to head off a crippling executive order or a news organization settling a Trump lawsuit, institutions struck deals and were perceived by some as putting profits — and remaining in Mr. Trump’s relative good graces — ahead of their principles. They were widely derided as capitulating opportunists, a fate Harvard officials are eager to avoid in practice or perception.
Lawrence H. Summers, a former Harvard president who has been critical of the university’s culture, suggested in an interview on Monday that a deal, in and of itself, should not be seen as a surrender. A carefully crafted settlement, he said, could help repair some of the university’s problems while preserving its independence and rigor.
If there were no conceivable changes for the university to make that would satisfy the administration, he said, there might be no value in negotiations. But, Dr. Summers said, “I don’t hear anyone at Harvard saying Harvard doesn’t need to work at diversity of perspective.”
Harvard declined to comment. In a statement on Friday, after a federal judge handed the university another temporary legal victory, a Harvard spokesperson said the school would “continue to defend its rights — and the rights of its students and scholars.”
The monthslong strain between Harvard and the Trump administration largely traces to a letter the government mistakenly sent the university on April 11 that proposed a range of intrusive demands, including some related to academic freedom. After Harvard refused, the administration began a widening crusade against the university that included the stripping of billions of dollars in research funding and a protracted effort to bar the school from enrolling international students.
But the April missive shows the extent to which the government might seek seismic changes from Harvard, and it is guiding campus debates about how the school should respond to Washington.
In that letter, the administration said Harvard would need to submit to government audits related to admissions to ensure they were tied to merit and not race, national origin or “proxies thereof.” It made similar demands related to hiring.
The administration also pressed the university to take measures to ensure what it described as “viewpoint diversity,” and ensure there were no “ideological litmus tests.”
Many in academia, whether at Harvard or elsewhere, view an intrusive government role in admissions and hiring as red lines that Harvard should never invite the administration to cross.
Lee C. Bollinger, a former president of Columbia University and the University of Michigan, said that Harvard stood at a critical juncture in the history of American academia.
“How you conduct yourself in these moments will say a lot over the future,” he said.
He warned that allowing the government a say in hiring was a perilous threat to “a core, core academic freedom principle.”
Asked whether there were any possible arrangements on hiring and admissions that could easily satisfy the Trump administration and Harvard, Mr. Bollinger, a lawyer, replied: “My initial reaction is I can’t think of any.”
Many around academia are wary of the White House’s record. Law firms in particular drew sustained criticism after they made relatively anodyne pledges, like agreeing to represent clients no matter their political leanings, as part of negotiations with a president the firms felt was resorting to illegal and undemocratic tactics. The agony for those firms has often deepened since they’ve made those deals, as Mr. Trump has tried to shift expectations for what counts as compliance.
That an agreement might come over summer break, with significantly fewer students on campus, might only help Harvard so much.
A Harvard alumni group, Crimson Courage, wrote on Monday to the university’s president, Alan M. Garber, urging him to hold to his assertion this month that “no government should dictate what we teach, who we admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
“Standing strong is not merely an operational exercise: it is a moral imperative,” the group told Dr. Garber and other university leaders. “The world is watching and needs Harvard’s leadership and courage now. Harvard’s status as a global leader in higher education would be decimated if Harvard were to compromise on these ideals.
“We cannot stand for ‘veritas’ if we refuse to stand up for truth when the moment demands it or if we dilute our values because it is expedient,” the group continued, referring to Harvard’s motto.
Of course, Harvard is always likely to attract blowback of some kind, deal or not.
“There’s no way forward for Harvard without there being substantial criticism, so I think it’s a question of which critics you are going to have,” said Dr. Summers, who said the university should steadfastly resist any government effort to “micromanage” or shape curriculum or hiring.
Some Harvard supporters believe that the university’s two-month legal fight with the Trump administration may give it room to maneuver and, given its wins so far, portray a settlement as a favorable outcome. Under one idea being floated inside Harvard, the university and the Trump administration could reach a settlement in one of the ongoing lawsuits the school has brought and give a judge the authority to enforce it.
Other universities are watching closely.
Columbia is in talks with the federal government as it seeks to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants and contracts. And the Trump administration has used an ad hoc process to cut research funds from a handful of other elite schools, including the Ivy League’s Brown, Princeton and University of Pennsylvania.
Harvard, though, is the only school that has taken the administration to court to challenge its targeting.
“I know,” Mr. Bollinger said, “a number of other universities are just waiting in line to see how this unfolds.”
Michael S. Schmidt is an investigative reporter for The Times covering Washington. His work focuses on tracking and explaining high-profile federal investigations.
Alan Blinder is a national correspondent for The Times, covering education.
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