The school is the first to push back against the government’s efforts to force change at elite universities.
With billions of dollars in federal funding at risk, Harvard University officials on Monday rejected Trump administration demands to make sweeping changes to its governance, admissions and hiring practices.
Harvard will continue to work to combat antisemitism, and “Harvard remains open to dialogue about what the university has done, and is planning to do, to improve the experience of every member of its community,” two attorneys representing the school wrote in a letter Monday, but the school “is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”
The school is the first to push back against the government’s efforts to force change at elite universities.
And it has the most funding potentially at stake: The administration recently announced that it was reviewing $9 billion in contracts and grants to Harvard and its affiliates.
Billions of dollars in federal funding have been threatened at several universities in recent weeks, as the Trump administration has moved to aggressively compel higher education to change. Some of the efforts are directed at combating campus antisemitism, with officials demanding that schools do more to ensure that Jewish students
