Harvard Announces It Will Defy Trump Order to Cut DEI Programs and Expel Pro-Palestinian Protestors

(AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

Harvard University announced Monday it will not comply with orders from President Donald Trump to cut DEI programs and expel students in involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

In early April, Trump provided his list of demands to the university. That list included cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, banning masks at protests, and expelling students involved in pro-Palestinian protests. Trump also called for the university to recognize pro-Palestinian student groups and commit to “full cooperation” with the Department of Homeland Security.

Failure to comply with those demands, the president said, would result in a loss of funding.

According to a report from the campus newspaper The Harvard Crimson, the university will not be giving in to Trump’s demands. In an email obtained by the outlet, university president Alan M. Garber called the demands a “political ploy disguised as an effort to address antisemitism on campus.”

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach,” Garber said, “whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

The memo from Garber came two days after nearly 500 university affiliates gathered at Harvard Square to urge him to resist Trump’s demands.