Faced with Trump administration threats to cut billions in federal funding unless it allowed sweeping new government supervision of its operations, Harvard University had a two-letter answer: “No.”
And so the university finds itself facing the loss of $2.2 billion in support and a potentially open-ended conflict with a president who, for the moment at least, exercises total control over the levers of power in Washington.
You can’t help but admire Harvard for its willingness to take this financial hit on behalf of its principles, when other institutions Trump targeted—notably big-name law firms and Ivy League peer Columbia—caved.
In fact, it’s hard to see how Harvard could not have pushed back. As laid out in an April 11 letter, the conditions the administration sought to impose on Harvard, in the name of combating antisemitism, allegedly racially discriminatory DEI, and allegedly biased “intellectual conditions,” appeared even more intrusive than those to which Columbia reluctantly submitted—without, so far, definitively appeasing the administration.