Some Faculty Urge Harvard To Hold Out Against a Trump Deal, While Others Shift Focus to ‘Harm Reduction’

As Harvard and the White House debate the details of a potential deal, many University affiliates have started to see a settlement between the two parties as inevitable — even as they remain skeptical that it would protect Harvard’s independence.

In recent weeks, the White House has pushed Harvard to pay a major financial settlement, and the New York Times reported Monday that Harvard was open to paying $500 million.

The reports came on the heels of settlements from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, the latter of which paid more than $200 million and agreed to third-party oversight of its compliance in exchange for the restoration of hundreds of millions of dollars in revoked federal funding. On Wednesday, Brown University also reached an agreement with the White House.

For much of the spring, faculty registered sharp opposition to the prospect of ending the Trump administration’s onslaught against Harvard by cutting a deal. But the steady trickle of news from the negotiating table — and the capitulation of three of Harvard’s Ivy League peers — has pushed even some opponents of a deal to focus instead on drawing lines in the sand against the terms they find unacceptable.

Harvard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors sent a Tuesday afternoon email asking its members to tell Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 either to reject a deal entirely — or to adhere to a set of suggested red lines. The AAUP stressed that they wanted faculty to have a say in any terms Harvard eventually accepts.

“Harvard bears an historic responsibility to stand as a bulwark against academic and democratic decline,” the group wrote. “At the same time, if a deal is imminent, a strategy of harm reduction would seem to recommend a collective effort to ensure that the specifics of an eventual ‘deal’ are as protective of academic freedom and institutional independence as realistically possible.”

And on Thursday, nine faculty members addressed a letter to Garber and members of the Harvard Corporation to outline a list of key values they “trust will be protected” in a deal.

“Some of us believe that Harvard should not engage in any extraordinary ‘negotiations’ with an overstepping federal government; others believe that efforts to find a settlement are the right way forward. All of us have nevertheless agreed to sign this letter because we feel that public clarity is important about what cannot be compromised by Harvard,” the letter read.

Both groups listed a series of concessions that they view as unacceptable.

The AAUP’s red lines included “substantive” changes to faculty hiring and tenure reviews, “exceptional” treatment of academic units and centers, and amendments to student disciplinary guidelines that would punish activities “disfavored” by the government. Sharing Harvard affiliates’ information with the government beyond what is legally required should also be off limits, the group wrote.

The chapter also urged Harvard not to make faculty hires or create academic centers without the oversight of faculty. And it rejected the appointment of any third-party monitor — other than Allison D. Burroughs, the federal judge overseeing Harvard’s two lawsuits against the Trump administration.

The letter to Garber and the Corporation, which was signed by nine prominent economists and political scientists, likewise emphasized that outside authorities must not dictate the University’s governance, faculty hiring, or student admissions decisions.

Also included in the group’s nonnegotiables are that Harvard reject external monitoring and that data on affiliates’ political viewpoints not be shared. In the case of financial settlements, the group said that University representatives should ensure funds are allocated transparently and not “to patronage slush funds.”

The University, which has not even publicly acknowledged the existence of settlement talks, is unlikely to involve large cohorts of faculty in discussions with Trump. But both groups’ guidelines stand in contrast to Columbia’s deal with White House, which could be a preview to what an agreement would look like for Harvard.

Columbia agreed to continue a review of its regional studies programs, including the university’s Middle East programs; bar face masks at protests and protesting inside academic buildings; and tell the Department of Homeland Security when a student is expelled, suspended, or arrested.

The agreement also detailed an approach for enforcing the agreement. Columbia will pay for an independent monitor to ensure both parties abide by the deal, provide a report every six months, and report to Columbia’s president. If a dispute arises, an arbitrator can issue a non-binding opinion, and if that solution doesn’t work, legal action can be taken.

Columbia claimed the deal returned its federal funds without sacrificing academic freedom. Officials specifically pointed to a sentence that reads: “no provision of this Agreement, individually or taken together, shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate faculty hiring, university hiring, admissions decisions or the content of academic speech.”

Some Harvard affiliates saw room for optimism in Columbia’s agreement.

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers called the agreement between Columbia and the White House an “excellent template” for Harvard in a post on X last week. Summers lauded the deal’s reforms to address campus antisemitism and “merit-based” admissions and hiring.

“This may be the best day higher education has had in the last year,” added Summers, who has backed Harvard’s fight against the Trump administration but called for oversight of academic programs that he believes are antisemitic.

Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology professor Richard T. Lee ’79 said he trusted Garber to steer Harvard in the right direction and would “get behind” whatever decision University officials make.

Government and Sociology professor Theda R. Skocpol said she “can live with” Harvard paying the government millions like Columbia, if the deal would be financially net positive by returning billions of dollars in federal research funding. But, she added, no acceptable agreement could forfeit the University’s independence or academic freedom.

Other Harvard faculty say they would see any deal with the White House as the submission of another American institution in the face of what they see as extortionary demands.

“I am troubled by the scattered media reports that Harvard is apparently discussing a settlement with the Trump administration,” Classics professor Emily Greenwood wrote in a statement. “I would have hoped that the President and his administration would be committed to supporting America’s excellent universities and colleges rather than cynically undermining them.”

There is no denying that Harvard has taken on an outsized role in the public’s imagination of the fight against Donald Trump — and that its resistance has been a point of pride for many students and alumni.

In March, after Columbia first conceded to federal demands but while Harvard’s plans remained unclear, faculty and local politicians rallied on Cambridge Common to call on the University to defy the White House. In June, when word first emerged that Harvard had rejoined talks with the White House, both students and alumni penned letters urging Harvard to protect its academic freedom.

Now, some of the groups that have championed Harvard’s resistance fear that a compromise would undermine the principles that it represents — with potentially dire consequences for both the University and its peers.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has previously praised Harvard for resisting Trump, warned that striking a deal would set a “dangerous” precedent and encourage the White House to go after other institutions.

“Harvard must hold the line on institutional autonomy, academic freedom, and free expression. Period,” the group wrote, adding that any settlement “would threaten the First Amendment and the foundation of American higher education.”

And the AAUP cautioned that the Trump administration could always come back for more: “extortion payments are rarely a one-time affair,” they wrote.

Erez Yoeli, an Economics lecturer who also holds tenure at MIT, wrote in a statement that the news that Harvard might be nearing a deal left him with “conflicting feelings.” Though he said he opposes the federal government’s efforts to financially pressure universities into “sanctioning political speech,” he acknowledged that a protracted battle with the White House would be an “expensive proposition” with few upsides for Harvard.

“These don’t jibe with my personal politics so well, and I admit to hoping Harvard stands firm for the benefit of the academy as a whole,” he wrote. “Someone with different politics would, naturally, see things differently.”

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.