Harvard Refuses to Comply with DJT’s Demands

In the face of threats to cut $9 billion in federal funding, Harvard University rejected demands by Donald Trump’s regime.

Harvard said the demands exceed the government’s authority and infringe on Harvard’s independence and constitutional rights. In other words, Harvard bluntly called the government’s demands illegal.

Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a message to the community:

The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. [….] 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.

Garber said many of the government’s demands have nothing to do with antisemitism and instead seek to reshape “intellectual conditions” at Harvard.

Harvard’s announcement was its response to a letter Friday in which the regime laid out demands which include revising the University’s governance and hiring, a ban on face masks, and “audits” of academic programs, departments, and the viewpoints of students, faculty, and staff.

The Department of Education wrote to 60 universities last month, including Columbia, Northwestern, University of Michigan, and Tufts. The Department threatened enforcement, ostensibly for failure to comply with anti-discrimination provisions in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and failure to crack down on antisemitism. Federal research funding at several institutions has been frozen.

Making the case for investment in research at universities, Harvard updated its website to especially showcase federally funded medical research Trump threatens to stop. The website explains Harvard’s research advances for cancer research, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, obesity and diabetes, infectious diseases, and organs and transplantation. Researchers, their labs and scientific advances are shown and explained in understandable ways.

As the oldest university and wealthiest university in the country, backed by an endowment that was worth $53 billion last year, despite huge amounts of funding at stake, Harvard set an example by taking a stand.

Click here for more details.

Click here to read the letter the government sent to Harvard.