NY Times Reveals Details of Likely Deal Between Trump Admin And Harvard
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The Trump administration and Harvard University are close to announcing a “landmark legal settlement” that will force Harvard to pay $500 million to get its federal funding restored, reported the New York Times on Monday.
The in-depth report from Alan Blinder, Michael S. Schmidt, and Michael C. Bender cited “four people familiar with the deliberations” and reported that negotiations were close to “developing a framework for a settlement to end their monthslong battle.”
Central to that framework, which the report noted could collapse under additional pressure from Trump, is Harvard agreeing to spend $500 million on “vocational and educational programs” – something Trump has long pushed for.
The talks could still collapse, as President Trump and senior Harvard officials need to sign off on the terms of the deal. The sides are still going back and forth over important wording in for a potential agreement.
“That figure, currently penciled in to be paid out over years, would meet a demand from President Trump that Harvard spend more than double what Columbia University agreed last month to pay. It would also satisfy Harvard’s wish that it not pay the government directly, as Columbia is doing,” added the report.
Columbia’s settlement with the Trump administration led to widespread criticism on the left, as many accused the university of capitulating to autocratic demands. The framework of the deal also requires Harvard to “make commitments to continue its efforts to combat antisemitism on campus, two of the people said.” Under the framework, Harvard would “avoid the appointment of a monitor, a condition the school has demanded as a way to preserve its academic independence,” added the report.
In April, Harvard sued the Trump administration after it pulled billions in federal research funds. “The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting,” Harvard President Alan Garber said when announcing the suit.
“The tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote in their legal filing.
Garber also said Harvard would defy Trump’s demand to end Harvard’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, ban masks at protests, and alter its hiring practices to limit the power of teachers “more committed to activism than scholarship.”
“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 in a statement at the time, adding, “The University will not surrender its independence or its constitutional rights.”
Read the full report here.
