What’s New
The Trump administration is demanding that Harvard University eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, reform admissions and hiring practices, and crack down on student discipline “to remain a responsible recipient of federal taxpayer dollars.”
Harvard received the letter of demands from President Trump’s antisemitism task force on Thursday, a university spokesperson said. The letter also orders the university to “commit to full cooperation” with the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that in recent weeks has been targeting international students for deportation.
The letter came four days after federal agencies announced a review of more than $8 billion in multiyear grants held by Harvard as part of an investigation into the university’s handling of campus antisemitism. The task force also said it was considering stop-work orders on $255 million in contracts.
Harvard was one of 10 institutions singled out in February by the task force, and one of 60 institutions that received a letter in March from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights warning that antisemitic discrimination and harassment could put their federal funding at risk.
“It is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that all recipients are responsible stewards of taxpayer funds,” Thursday’s letter states. “Harvard University, however, has fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment.”
It’s a similar playbook to the one the Trump administration just used for Columbia University, which agreed to make a series of policy changes in an effort to restore $400 million in canceled federal funding. Unlike Columbia’s one-week deadline to comply, Harvard was not given a timeline. The Trump administration is expecting “immediate cooperation,” according to the letter.
The Details
Dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and embracing “merit-based” reforms are the main themes of the letter sent to Harvard. The emphasis on DEI contrasts with the missive sent to Columbia, which focused almost entirely on antisemitism.
“DEI programs teach students, faculty, staff, and leadership to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes, which fuels division and hatred based on race, color, national origin, and other protected identity characteristics,” the letter to Harvard states. “All efforts should be made to shutter such programs.”
Harvard must cease hiring preferences based on race, religion, or sex, the letter said — echoing language used in the Education Department’s recent guidance on DEI, which articulated the government’s stance that many such programs are illegal.
The letter also orders Harvard officials to cease admissions preferences based on race. Harvard ended the use of race as a factor in admissions decisions two years ago after the Supreme Court ruled against the university.
The Trump administration’s demand for Harvard to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security comes after the White House lambasted Columbia last month for “refusing to help” identify international students for arrest. Federal officials have sought to tie pro-Palestinian protesters to terrorist organizations like Hamas.
Much of Trump’s letter to Harvard is more vaguely written than the one to Columbia. While Columbia was told to put its Middle East studies department under “academic receivership,” Harvard is being told that programs and departments “that fuel antisemitic harassment” must be reviewed “to address bias, improve viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture.”
Like Columbia, Harvard has seen a surge in pro-Palestinian student protests on campus since the Israel-Hamas war began in the fall of 2023. Harvard’s “Gaza solidarity encampment” last year did not end with arrests; students dispersed voluntarily after negotiating an agreement with the administration.
While the government directed Columbia to abolish its existing disciplinary process and set up a new system within the president’s office, Thursday’s letter simply calls on Harvard to clarify its protest policies, which the university has already revised repeatedly in recent months, and ensure discipline for any student group that violates university rules.
The letter also tells Harvard to foster greater cooperation with law enforcement and to make governance reforms that “foster clear lines of authority and accountability,” without many specifics.
The Backdrop
Amid Trump’s scrutiny, Harvard officials have already made a series of changes this year.
In January, the university adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism for investigating student disciplinary cases; some free-speech advocates say the definition opens the door to punishing people who criticize Israel.
The university also laid off staff at its Slavery Remembrance Program, part of a $100-million Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative that identifies direct descendants of individuals enslaved by Harvard affiliates. The program was outsourced to American Ancestors, a genealogical nonprofit based in New England.
Most recently, Harvard dismissed faculty leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies on March 26, according to the Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper. The center had faced criticism for its programming on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In response to the Trump administration’s earlier announcement that it would review Harvard’s federal funding, President Alan Garber wrote in an email to the campus community on Monday that the university had “devoted considerable effort to addressing antisemitism.” He wrote the university had “strengthened our rules and our approach to disciplining those who violate them.”
“We will engage with members of the federal government’s task force to combat antisemitism to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism,” Garber wrote.
Columbia, meanwhile, announced on March 21 a series of policy changes that closely aligned with most of the Trump administration’s demands. The university agreed to give campus safety officers arrest powers, reform student disciplinary proceedings, adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, implement a mask ban, reform admissions practices, and place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies department under the oversight of a senior vice provost.
“I believe the plans, many of which were already underway, are the right thing to do and are the right thing for our institution,” Claire Shipman, Columbia’s acting president, said in a Friday video.
The Stakes
Harvard’s response to the demands will be watched closely by other colleges as another early test case of higher ed’s relationship with the Trump administration.
“There needs to be a university president with courage who will stand up for the mission of higher ed,” Nico Perrino, executive vice president at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote in a statement to The Chronicle.
Perrino said “many of these Ivies don’t have clean hands” because they censored too much speech and permitted unlawful behavior. Yet, Perrino said, “the solution cannot be worse than the disease. And this response is worse than the disease.”
Perrino wrote that the federal government is effectively putting Harvard and Columbia under academic receivership by dictating speech codes, department hiring and curriculum, and student disciplinary processes. Other Ivy League institutions, including Brown University, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania, have also had some federal funding frozen.
“You cannot maintain your truth-seeking mission in an environment where the feds control the free-speech and academic-freedom rights of your students and faculty. The capitulation is shortsighted,” Perrino wrote. “Don’t pretend capitulating will end the demands.”
