Why Donald Trump’s Return Could Spell Trouble for Harvard
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 always knew it would be difficult for him to mend the University’s relationship with Washington. It just became a lot harder.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House and a Republican majority in the Senate — and, possibly, control of the House — give Harvard officials plenty to worry about.
Republicans have vowed to cut federal funding to elite institutions of higher education, increase taxes on university endowments, reverse Biden-era Title IX protections, and deport “pro-Hamas radicals” on college campuses.
Since taking over as interim president, Garber has met with lawmakers and White House officials several times in an attempt to convince the University’s critics in Washington that Harvard is addressing antisemitism forcefully.
But with Trump back in the White House and in control of the Education Department, none of that may matter.
“I fear we have to be very concerned,” said former Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine. “We’re in a very difficult situation with the current House membership and its current attitudes toward universities. I really do think we have to be very much on our guard.”
“We can’t just roll over and give in to them,” Rudenstine added. “But at the same time, we’ve got to recognize the fact that they just have a lot of power.”
‘Jurisdiction as President’
The political attacks against higher education only increased over the past four years under a Democratic administration — except most of the criticism did not come from Democrats.
Since December, the most direct threat to Harvard has come from the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
The committee called former Harvard President Claudine Gay to testify before Congress during a hearing about campus antisemitism in December 2023. Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) grilled Gay over the University’s policies and why it had not done more to protect its Jewish students, which contributed to her resignation one month later.
Despite Gay’s resignation, the committee has been investigating the University’s alleged failure to combat campus antisemitism for nearly one year. In February, the committee subpoenaed Garber and two other senior members of Harvard’s leadership.
Last week, five days before the election, the committee dropped a bombshell report about the University’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that argued Harvard “likely violated” Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The committee also indicated that it was prepared to pass the baton to the White House.
“It is time for the executive branch to enforce the laws and ensure colleges and universities restore order and guarantee that all students have a safe learning environment,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the committee’s chair, wrote in a statement.
After Trump is sworn into office in January, he will have the option to take up the baton.
But that claim, which is also at the heart of two lawsuits currently making their way through federal court, cannot be enforced by the committee itself without legislation.
Instead, Stanley M. Brand, the former general counsel to the House of Representatives, said that enforcement will be up to the Department of Education.
“I think what it opens up is — with a change in administrations and a wholly different view of how the executive branch is going to enforce these laws — there could well be a stimulus for the new Education Department to take a different posture towards this whole issue,” Brand said.
“I would expect that if the new administration believes there’s still mileage in this issue for them, they will take a look at it,” he added.
University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain wrote in an October statement that “Harvard has and will continue to be unequivocal that antisemitism will not be tolerated on our campus.”
“We have taken, and continue to take, actions to combat hate and to promote and nurture civil dialogue and respectful engagement,” he added.
While Trump is unlikely to get enough votes from Congress to fulfill his pledge of dissolving the department entirely, he may be able to use the Education Department to push forward pledges to tax and defund colleges and universities.
Stefanik, who led the crusade against Gay, has been floated as a potential candidate for secretary of education in Trump’s administration — a nightmare scenario for Harvard.
After her viral moment questioning Gay at the congressional hearing, Stefanik told the New York Post she intends to “use every tool at our disposal to ensure that schools that protect and encourage antisemitism are cut off from any and all federal funds.”
During a private meeting in October with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) even floated revoking Harvard’s national accreditation entirely with Trump in office again.
While stripping accreditation — which is necessary for Harvard to receive federal funding — is an extremely unlikely outcome, Scalise’ scomments indicate that Republicans will, at a minimum, continue to make Harvard sweat.
A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to questions about whether cutting university funding will be a priority for the president-elect.
But Peter F. Lake ’81, a law professor at Stetson University, said that even if Republicans try to defund Harvard, it won’t be an easy process.
“There are a lot of steps to get to that place,” Lake said. “It would be probably no less challenging than skipping down the yellow brick road.”
In Congress, five other House committees have also been instructed to investigate Harvard’s federal funding.
AnnMarie Graham-Barnes, a spokesperson for the Committee on Education and the Workforce, did not answer questions about whether the investigation has formally concluded.
“As long as Jewish students are facing discrimination and harassment, the Committee will continue to demand better from universities,” Graham-Barnes wrote in a statement.
A Test of Institutional Voice
Trump’s administration will also put new strain on the University’s new institutional voice policy, defining which public policy issues Garber and other members of University leadership consider to be directly relevant to the University.
Harvard’s policy guidelines for the modified neutrality statement support the University’s decision to issue a statement on Trump-era travel restrictions from several Muslim-majority countries. But with lingering scrutiny over Harvard and its public statements, Garber may feel pressure to remain silent on similar issues after Trump takes office.
When Trump was first elected into office in 2016, former Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust issued a University-wide statement reflecting on what she called the “most divisive and contentious election any of us has ever known.”
“And not just acrimonious words but escalating numbers of cruel and frightening incidents — around the country, including on college campuses — now threaten our profoundest national and human values,” Faust wrote.
Faust’s advocacy also extended beyond issuing statements. She met with officials in the Department of Homeland Security and members of Congress to discuss how to best protect undocumented students if Trump repealed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Other top Harvard administrators, including Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana, also spoke out against Trump’s rhetoric targeting undocumented immigrants and transgender rights during Trump’s first term.
When the Department of Education rolled back protections which allowed transgender students to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity in February 2017, Khurana denounced the decision, saying that supporting trans rights was the “right thing to do.”
“It’s a moral and ethical issue about treating people with dignity and I think Harvard College is committed to that,” Khurana said. “Period.”
Paul Reville, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, acknowledged in an interview that Trump’s second term could test Harvard’s new institutional voice policy.
“The neutrality decision seemed like a good solution for the challenges the University was facing at the time, and yet there are so many gray areas associated with the implementation of that policy that those are going to be put to the test now,” Reville said.
‘Continue to Engage’
Garber has spent the past 10 months quietly reasoning with lawmakers and shoring up the University’s policies for responding to protests and free speech concerns.
But that may not be enough to spare Harvard from a Republican movement determined to combat higher education institutions they increasingly see as liberal bastions that indoctrinate students into “wokeism.”
University Professor Gary King said the tension between Harvard and Washington reflects a growing divide between the political parties over education.
“We — that is the universities, intellectuals, the academics, the scholars, the students — we find ourselves on one side of the divide,” King said.
“The majority of the American public of an age to have a college degree do not have a college degree. So the Republicans looked at that, and they said, ‘Oh, we’ll take those, thank you very much.’ And they found a way of splitting them off,” he added. “That is really unfortunate for us.”
Trump himself has voiced support for increasing the tax on Harvard’s endowment, and Vice President-elect JD Vance authored a 2023 bill to increase the endowment tax from 1.4 percent to 35 percent — a threat which has long made Harvard officials nervous.
Trump’s national party platform also includes a promise to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again,” a threat to use immigration orders against pro-Palestine protesters in the coming years.
Each policy will force Garber to choose between quietly working to win over legislators and mounting a public defense of higher education at the behest of students and faculty.
A University spokesperson wrote in a statement that “the University will continue to engage in Washington and with federal leaders to make the case for the partnership between the government and universities that supports students, vital research and innovation that fuel economic growth, as well as improvements in health and wellbeing.”
But even as Garber continues to meet with lawmakers in Washington, he also indicated in an interview in April that he is prepared to advocate for Harvard when it is threatened.
“I believe that the attacks on Harvard for the most part are attacks on higher ed, particularly attacks on our peer institutions,” he said. “It’s very important to defend the principles that our universities stand behind.”
—Staff writer Emma H. Haidar can be reached at emma.haidar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @HaidarEmma.
—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles.