Harvard Stands Firm Against Trump Diktats. Here's How Other Ivy League Colleges Are Faring

Tensions have risen in US academia following US President Donald Trump's administration’s decision to cut multi-year grants worth over $2 billion and contracts at Harvard University. This was after the institution rejected the administration’s policy changes, which the White House is now demanding other elite universities adopt.

According to a CNN report, Harvard declined to comply with several of the Trump administration's demands, including eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, banning masks at campus protests, implementing merit-based hiring and admissions reforms, as well as curbing the influence of faculty and administrators—whom the administration has criticised as being "more committed to activism than scholarship."

Harvard President Alan M. Garber said that Harvard “will not surrender”.

Harvard seems to be the first elite university to rebuke the White House's demands. Trump officials have claimed that they are trying to combat antisemitism after the campus protests in reaction to the Israel- Hamas war in Gaza. The White House is also targeting DEI practices—intended to promote representation across race, gender, class, and other identities in public institutions—labelling them as “illegal and immoral discrimination”, reported CNN.

On Monday, the Trump administration wrote that universities have the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws and stop the harassment of Jewish students, while mentioning the Harvard funding freeze, though it didn’t cite any examples.

On Tuesday, President Trump threatened to tax Harvard as a political entity.

Trump administration officials have initiated the revocation of visas for more than 525 students, faculty, and researchers across over 80 US universities and colleges, as per the news outlet. Some cases involve serious allegations of support for terrorist organisations, and others relate to comparatively minor infractions, including misdemeanours committed years ago.

Columbia University

Columbia University was among the first institutions the Trump administration targeted. On March 7, it announced that it was withdrawing $400 million in federal grants and contracts from the university. White House officials cited the university’s alleged failure to curb antisemitism during campus protests last year as the reason for the action.

In a second letter sent the following week, the administration specified the changes it expected after talks with university officials. These included enforcing disciplinary policies, setting clear protest regulations, banning masks used to conceal identities, creating a plan to hold student groups accountable, strengthening campus law enforcement, and reviewing both Middle East studies programs and admissions procedures.

After weeks of back and forth, on Monday night, the acting Columbia University President Claire Shipman said that while it was in talks with the Trump administration, the school would not compromise its commitment to academic freedom.

Columbia University said that it was holding “good faith negotiation” with the United States President Donald Trump administration in order to regain federal funding worth $400 million, mostly for medical and other scientific research.

Stanford University

California’s Stanford University is among the institutions under investigation by the Department of Education for alleged “antisemitic discrimination and harassment.” While officials at Stanford have not publicly commented on the current status of the probe, they voiced support for Harvard’s stance.

Stanford President Jonathan Levin and Provost Jenny Martinez, in a statement, have underscored the importance of academic independence. They said that the nation’s universities were built on government investment, but not government control.

ALSO READ: ‘Will Not Compromise Academic’: Columbia To Trump Admin Over Federal Grants

Princeton University

Also in a show of solidarity, Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber said “Princeton stands with Harvard” in a LinkedIn post Tuesday, and encouraged everyone to read the Harvard president’s letter.

The Trump administration has suspended $210 million in research grants to Princeton University amid an ongoing federal investigation into alleged antisemitism on campus, the university’s president announced in early April, as per the CNN report.

As per the report, these suspended grants were provided by NASA, the Defense Department, and the Energy Department. Additionally, the Commerce Department announced last week that the university would lose nearly $4 million more in federal funding earmarked for climate research programs.

Cornell University and Northwestern University

Last week, the Trump administration froze over $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University in New York and $790 million for Northwestern University near Chicago, according to a White House official speaking to CNN.

Both Cornell and Northwestern universities stated that they were not officially notified by the government about the funding freeze, they only learned about it through media reports. However, Cornell noted it had received over 75 stop-work orders from the Department of Defense.

The Chicago-based university has said that it has completely cooperated with investigations from Congress and the Department of Education.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Cornell University announced it is joining a lawsuit against the Energy Department’s proposed cuts to indirect costs, such as facilities and utilities. This legal action appears to be separate from the frozen federal funding the university is currently facing.

This chaos has students looking for graduate programs in Canadian universities.

 

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