Harvard University revealed that it will not comply with the Trump administration’s list of demands for the university to make changes to its policies regarding hiring, governance, student admissions, and antisemitism.
In a letter issued on Monday, lawyers for the university criticized an earlier letter from the Trump administration as disregarding “Harvard’s efforts” to make “changes to its campus use policies,” to address and combat hate and bias on campus, and enhance campus safety and security measures, among other efforts.
The university added that the demands from the administration “invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court.
“It is unfortunate, then, that your letter disregards Harvard’s efforts and instead presents demands that, in contravention of the First Amendment, invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court,” the letter says. “The government’s terms also circumvent Harvard’s statutory rights by requiring unsupported and disruptive remedies for alleged harms that the government has not proven through mandatory processes established by Congress and required by law.”
“No less objectionable is the condition, first made explicit in the letter of March 31, 2025, that Harvard accede to these terms or risk the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding critical to vital research and innovation that has saved and improved lives and allowed Harvard to play a central role in making our country’s scientific, medical, and other research communities the standard-bearers for the world,” the letter continued. “These demands extend not only to Harvard but to separately incorporated and independently operated medical and research hospitals engaging in life-saving work on behalf of their patients. The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. 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 as an agreement in principle.”
The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government. https://t.co/5k5t9RYYC2
— Harvard University (@Harvard) April 14, 2025
In a letter from April 11 addressed to Harvard University President Alan Garber and Penny Pritzker, a lead member with the Harvard Corporation, Harvard was accused to failing to “live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.”
The United States has invested in Harvard University’s operations because of the value to the country of scholarly discovery and academic excellence,” the earlier letter said. “But an investment is not an entitlement. It depends on Harvard upholding federal civil rights laws, and it only makes sense if Harvard fosters the kind of environment that produces intellectual creativity and scholarly rigor, both of which are antithetical to ideological capture.”
In the letter from Josh Gruenbaum, the Commissioner of the Federal Acquistion Service; Sean Keveney, the Acting General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Thomas Wheeler, the Acting General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Education, some of the demands called for Harvard to “make meaningful governance reform” by August 2025.
Other demands called for Harvard to “adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, the related practices among faculty, staff, and leadership,” by August 2025.
“By August 2025, the University must reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism,” another demand read.
Garber criticized the list of demands from the Trump administration, claiming that while “some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” according to NBC News.
The Trump administration has previously stated that it would examine roughly $256 million in contracts between Harvard University, along with $8.7 billion in “multi-year grant commitments” to the university.
Breitbart News reported that in February, President Donald Trump picked civil rights attorney Leo Terrell to lead a multi-agency antisemitism taskforce called the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. The task force’s “first priority” was to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.”
