Trump has targeted Harvard. But what does he want?

Boston Globe

01-04-2025

But Harvard has already undertaken many similar actions during its response to allegations of antisemitism on campus in the 15 months since former Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned.
'We fully embrace the important goal of combatting antisemitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry' and 'have devoted considerable effort to addressing' it, Harvard president Alan Garber said in a
At Columbia, the White House, asked university leaders to implement so-called time, manner, and place restrictions on campus protests. Harvard
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The government told Columbia to adopt a formal definition of antisemitism, and cited as an example the definition that
The administration instructed Columbia to place its Middle East studies department under 'academic receivership' after it was accused by some of biased teaching on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and criticized for writings and events some saw as antisemitic. Harvard moved last week to
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All of these policies have been controversial, at times prompting faculty protests and at least one resignation. Some critics
see them as attempts to repress disfavored speech and say they conflate legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Some professors and students cast them as misguided efforts to appease the Trump administration.
'Harvard is preemptively complying with fascism,' a pro-Palestinian Harvard student group said in its announcement of a protest on Tuesday against Harvard's response to the Trump administration's policies, including cuts to research funding and arrests of international students linked to pro-Palestinian advocacy.
But Harvard's leaders have persisted in what some professors, students, and administrators see as a serious effort to tamp down antisemitism, restrain a protest movement that they believe had gotten out of control, and promote more nuanced teaching on deeply contested issues. They worry the Trump administration's intervention could disrupt what they see as progress.
Changes are 'happening and brewing,' said Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychology professor who has expressed concern about campus antisemitism and what he contends is a
The Trump threats, he said, could short-circuit what some view as legitimate reforms by making them appear to be mere capitulation to government demands.
Pinker also criticized the Trump administration's methods. The review announced Monday seems to target all outstanding research funding to Harvard and its affiliates from across federal government agencies. If the funding were cut, it could eliminate research on subjects from climate change to cancer.
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'The gun to the head and shut[ting] down all science seems like a counterproductive way to handle the particular problems of antisemitism,' Pinker said.
But some Jewish advocacy groups want Trump to keep the pressure on Harvard. Roni Brunn, a spokesperson for the Harvard Jewish Alliance, said the grant review could push the university's leaders to ensure that 'antisemitism isn't created at Harvard, isn't platformed at Harvard, isn't elevated at Harvard.'
The Trump administration acknowledged on Monday that Harvard had taken 'recent actions to curb institutionalized antisemitism' and called those measures 'welcome,' although it did not specify which policies it was referring to.
It also said, in a statement from Josh Gruenbaum, a government lawyer working with the administration's antisemitism task force, 'there is much more that the university must do to retain the privilege of receiving federal taxpayers' hard-earned dollars.'
Now university leaders are waiting to see what that might entail, and how the Trump administration might try to enforce any demands.
David Wolpe, a rabbi and former visiting scholar at Harvard's Divinity School who has remained active in the university's Jewish community, said many reacted to Monday's news with 'expected shock.'
'People knew something was on the horizon and here it is,' he said. Now, he said, Harvard academics are hoping 'this will actually be a review and not a cleaver.'
Jeffrey Flier, a former dean of Harvard Medical School, said the only way the Trump administration could 'get to such a big number' — the $9 billion of funding targeted in its review — was by including research funding destined for all the far-flung institutions that are affiliated with Harvard, in addition to the university itself.
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That means physicians and scientists with little connection to the university could be punished for what the Trump administration alleges are Harvard's failings, with seemingly little recourse.
Dan Barouch, head of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which is affiliated with Harvard, said $9 billion is 'a huge number' that 'makes me worry about the work that countless people do in countless areas.'
Barouch's center helped develop the COVID-19 vaccine marketed by Johnson & Johnson. The center has received millions of dollars in federal funding over the past decade to work on vaccines to prevent multiple diseases, including HIV.
Barouch said he had no idea whether funding for his center's work could be imperiled by the Trump administration's review, and had no immediate plans to inquire about it.
'I don't think that anybody knows,' he said. 'I wouldn't even know who to ask.'
Anne Klibanski, chief executive of Mass General Brigham, which is affiliated with Harvard,
said in a message to MGB's faculty Tuesday afternoon that '[t]here are many open questions about' the review and she is still working 'to understand its breadth.'
'When more information is known, we will share it,' she said.
Some Jewish students and faculty members said Harvard's measures to combat antisemitism have worked, and expressed concern the Trump administration's intervention could roll back progress by creating a backlash.
'I think [Trump] doesn't actually care about antisemitism,' said Evan Epstein, a first-year Harvard student. 'He sees it as a front in his war on higher education. I like that people are talking about antisemitism, and I wish that more people would, but I don't think that he's genuine
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And I don't think he is going to help.'
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At the rally outside Harvard's Science Center on Tuesday, Mark Eisenberg, a professor at Harvard Medical School, said universities should not be 'capitulating to the demands of the Trump administration.'
He said he was disappointed Garber, the Harvard president, did not more strongly emphasize the importance of academic freedom in his campus letter Monday.
'Universities all have to get together and say, 'No, we won't capitulate,' ' he said.
Jonathan Saltzman of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Mike Damiano can be reached at