Harvard making changes that Trump administration wants, even without a deal
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
With billions of dollars in research funds in jeopardy, Harvard's leaders are negotiating with the White House.
PHOTO: AFP
By Stephanie Saul
Follow topic:
- The Trump administration aggressively pressured Harvard to reshape its culture through specific demands.
- Harvard resisted some demands, deeming them intrusive, but aligned with others, like renaming diversity offices.
- Harvard removed leaders and suspended partnerships following accusations of anti-Semitism amid government scrutiny.
AI generated
NEW YORK - Early in the spring, an aggressive and polarising new presidential administration drafted a menu of demands, many of them very specific, designed to reshape the culture at Harvard, the nation’s richest university.
With billions of dollars in research funds
But an eventual deal
The university has recoiled at some of the sweeping changes the Trump administration demanded. Harvard’s president, Dr Alan Garber, has singled out several as intrusive and unconstitutional, including demands that might influence whom the university hires and admits.
But it has also taken a host of steps that align with the White House’s desires, checking off items on the administration’s detailed menu, which have ranged from eliminating diversity offices to ousting programme leaders.
President Donald Trump and his appointees have made their attack on Harvard a totem for the changes they want to see across America’s elite universities, using the government’s blunt power to force compliance in a manner never before seen.
The Trump administration’s demands included eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. In April, Harvard renamed its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging – it is now called the Office for Community and Campus Life.
More recently, Harvard also took down websites for its Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, as well as websites for companion offices for gay and female students, and said it was merging them into a new, single centre.
The government has also sought leadership shake-ups in certain departments, including the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, after Jewish alumni and others accused the programmes of sponsoring anti-Semitic programming. Harvard removed two of the centre’s leaders, including Mr Cemal Kafadar, a leading Turkish scholar, in March.
And Trump officials asked for an end to Harvard’s partnership with Birzeit University, a top Palestinian college in the West Bank. Harvard said it had suspended the relationship and had struck up new ones with institutions in Israel.
The university has announced some of the changes, arguing that they were needed to make the campus more welcoming and more open to different viewpoints. But Harvard history professor Kirsten Weld said that while the university says it is independently adopting measures that mirror some of the White House demands, that is a slippery contention. NYTIMES
