Harvard argues it has ‘common ground’ with Trump administration

Harvard University struck a respectful but firm tone in a letter to the Trump administration on May 12, arguing that the university and the administration shared the same goals, though they differed in their approaches. It was the latest move in an extraordinary back-and-forth between the school and the federal government in recent weeks.

The letter from Harvard president Alan M. Garber was sent a week after the Trump administration said it would stop giving Harvard any research grants.

In April, the university took the government to court over what it has called unlawful intrusion into its operations. But on May 12, Mr Garber’s tone was softer, saying he agreed with some of the Trump administration’s concerns about higher education, but that Harvard’s efforts to combat bigotry and foster an environment for free expression had been hurt by the government’s actions.

Mr Garber said he embraced the goals of curbing anti-Semitism on campus; fostering more intellectual diversity, including welcoming conservative voices; and curtailing the use of race in admissions decisions.

Those goals “are undermined and threatened by the federal government’s overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities and its continuing disregard of Harvard’s compliance with the law”, Mr Garber said in the letter to US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.

The university’s response came one week after Ms McMahon wrote to Harvard to advise the university against applying for future grants, “since none will be provided”. That letter provoked new worries inside Harvard about the long-term consequences of its clash with the Trump administration.

In Mr Garber’s letter on May 12, he said that the university had created a strategy to combat anti-Semitism and other bigotry, and had invested in the academic study of Judaism and related fields. But he said the university would not “surrender its core, legally protected principles out of fear of unfounded retaliation by the federal government”.

He denied Ms McMahon’s assertion that Harvard was political.

“It is neither Republican nor Democratic,” he said of the university. “It is not an arm of any other political party or movement. Nor will it ever be. Harvard is a place to bring people of all backgrounds together to learn in an inclusive environment where ideas flourish regardless of whether they are deemed ‘conservative’, ‘liberal’, or something else.” NYTIMES