By M. Gessen / The New York Times
The world’s most famous university has done the right thing, and this is major news. It shouldn’t be. But less than three months into the second Trump administration, we are surprised by simple dignity. Capitulation would have garnered smaller headlines.
On Friday, the Trump administration sent a five-page letter to Harvard accusing the university of failing “to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.” The letter demanded that the university change its governance structure; overhaul its admissions policies; submit to an external audit of the medical school, the School of Public Health, the Divinity School and several other programs that the letter claimed have “egregious records of antisemitism or other bias”; revamp student-discipline procedures; “end support” and withdraw university recognition of several pro-Palestinian student groups and the National Lawyers Guild; and commit to a process of reform running “at least until the end of 2028,” during which the university would submit quarterly reports on its compliance with the government’s demands. In the manner of a racketeer, the letter implied, without quite spelling it out, that if the university failed to comply, it would lose its federal funding.
The letter came from the Education Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration. These are all agencies that can have a role in overseeing the university. Laws and rules exist for such oversight. They involve negotiations, investigations and, when it comes to federal funding, congressional procedures, complete with periods of public notice. This process is complicated by design; a design intended to protect universities from capricious, politically motivated meddling and to make the withdrawal of federal funding an option of last resort.
But the Trump administration pulls funds first and negotiates second, dispensing with the rest of the process. Its first target was Columbia University. When that school acceded to the administration’s demands, it didn’t get its funding back. Instead, the administration is reportedly considering demanding that Columbia agree to direct government oversight; effectively, a takeover of the university.
Harvard chose a different response from Columbia’s. On Monday, its lawyers sent a letter to the administration pointing out that the administration was in violation of the law. “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” the letter said. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government. Accordingly, Harvard will not accept the government’s terms.”
No other response should have been possible by the logic of the law; or the logic of academic freedom or the logic of democracy. And yet, the Harvard lawyers’ letter sent waves of excitement through academic circles. This is a measure of how low, and how fast, our expectations have fallen.
One of the people who seemed surprised was Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican and the self-appointed gendarme of higher education who issued a statement declaring Harvard the “epitome of the moral and academic rot in higher education.”
Trump administration officials, on Monday evening, promptly announced what they had suggested: that they will freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants.
Still, one hopes that other universities that find themselves in the administration’s crosshairs — and there are many of them now — follow Harvard’s example and make self-respect, and respect for the law, unsurprising again.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times, c.2025.
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