Harvard Won’t Comply With Trump’s Demands to Dismantle DEI, Limit Protests
Harvard’s endowment is $53.2 billion. It doesn’t need my money.
Harvard University President Alan M. Garber said the school would not comply with President Donald Trump’s demands to keep its federal funding.
“No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” wrote Garber.
Well, Garber, if you want to be a private university, then you don’t need funding.
Harvard’s endowment is $53.2 billion. It doesn’t need my money:
An endowment fund is a collection of financial assets that the school can periodically pull from to cover an array of costs while intentionally growing the fund over time. In other words, a school’s endowment is a “super-charged rainy-day fund,” says Andrew Gillen, a senior policy analyst at the nonprofit Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Endowments are “under the control of either the university, or a group closely tied to the university,” he explains. “The idea of the endowment is to generate a continuous source of resources for the university to spend.”
At the end of March, the Education Department, HHS, and General Services Administration (GSA) started reviewing $9 billion in federal funding to Harvard.
Representatives from those departments sent Garber a letter on Friday that “incorporates and supersedes the terms of the federal government’s prior letter of April 3, 2025.”
The requirements include:
- Governance and leadership reforms
- Merit-based hiring reform
- Merit-based admissions reform
- International admissions reform
- Viewpoint diversity in admissions and hiring
- Reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism or other biases
- Discontinuation of DEI
- Student discipline reform and accountability
- Whistleblower reporting and protections
- Transparency and monitoring
“The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government,” whined Garber. “It violates Harvard’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge.”
Weird what happens when you take money from the government.
And no, from what I can tell, it does not exceed the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI.
Harvard College Dean of Students Thomas G. Dunne already said that the diversity offices haven’t planned on cutting any programs.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and its Harvard chapter sued Trump’s administration over the funding threats.
Our brilliant Jane Coleman has done a great job keeping tabs on AAUP.
The groups asked the Federal District Court in Massachusetts to implement a temporary restraining order.
“This action challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech on a university campus,” the groups claimed.
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Fine. Not another dime. Enough of this farce of giving money to leftists who openly hate us and everything we stand for.
Agreed. If the Trump administration proves able and willing to put an end to federal funding for Harvard, this may actually be a good thing.
Harvard can go find its own funding. Taxpayers should not be funding the DEI nonsense.
Qatar & China will be happy to make up the shortfall.
Bwahhhhh,,, I thought of another idea. Along with terminating their funding, and blocking federal guaranteed loans to their students terminate their tax exempt status. If you’re not going to follow federal law then all donations are taxable, all income is taxable, and all property is taxable.
Add a horde of damage lawsuits, for past and present, with Harvard being hosed for 1, 10, 100 million at a time. Make an example of them, a lesson for other universities.
There are several ways to skin a cat.
Whoa! They are following federal law. If they weren’t then Trump wouldn’t have to threaten their funding, he could sue them directly.
They are following federal law; they are merely not following the President’s preferences. They have every right to do that, and he has the right, within the boundaries set by Congress, to reconsider how much money he wants to sent their way.
And what federal law allows Harvard to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, or national origin again? Be specific.
I pop into the LI comments every once in a great while and the one consistency I always find is you defending the indefensible.
I forgot whether they did that to Bob Jones U or only threatened to.
So Harvaaad is planning to fund its own STEM research? I suspect they’re hoping to win their lawsuit. Given the corruption of the judiciary, they might.
So the feds are abusing their powers of civil rights enforcement authority to enforce equitable treatment and non-discrimination based on skin color, gender, viewpoint and religion? Good to know.
“Segregation now, segregation forever”, as another prominent Democrat said.
Wrong. The quote from George Wallace was “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
Moreover, when George Wallace ran for president in 1968, he did not run as a Democrat. He ran as a third-party candidate under the American Independent Party banner. Wallace intentionally broke from the Democratic Party to run on a platform that was overtly pro-racial segregation, anti-integration, and anti-Civil Rights, precisely because the Democrats would not support Wallace’s racist platform.
Wallace’s platform clearly resonated with voters in the deep south, and he won five states in the election. These states — Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia — would form the backbone of the future solidly Republican south. He did not win those states as a Democrat.
Slow your roll on the revisionist history about the GoP becoming the ‘segregation’ party. In ’63 Wallace was still the d/prog Gov of Alabama making the ‘stand in the schoolhouse door’ not just at Univ Alabama but also at elementary schools.
In ’64 while d/prog Gov he ran in the d/prog Presidential primary getting 1/3 + of the vote in Wisconsin, Indiana and Maryland. He dropped out and tried to swap parties to be Goldwater’s running mate in the GoP but got rebuffed b/c.Goldwater thought he was a racist SoB. Not an uncommon position b/c in ’64 the GoP won five HoR seats in Alabama and Alabama’s electoral college/Presidential vote with 70% voting for Goldwater.
Wallace was d/prog Gov from ’63-67 then again as d/prog Gov from 71-79. He claimed to became ‘born again’ and reevaluated his racist beliefs towards the end of that term as d/prog Gov.
He ran as d/prog in the ’72 d/prog Presidential primary winning the contests outside the deep south in Michigan and Maryland. So much for his switch to be an independent in ’68. That was opportunism nothing more… just as the overture to Goldwater was in ’64. Wallace cared first and foremost about the advancement and maintenance of the political fortunes of George Corley Wallace.
Are you a sock for rhardin? Picking on a completely minor nit is his specialty.
Wallace made the quote in 1963 when he was most definitely a Democrat, dumbass.
Weren’t you supposed to be in Ukraine by now, carrying an AK and a rucksack?
Quit upvoting yourself, dingus.
Indeed, but that didn’t happen by racist Democrat voters turning into racist Republican voters. It happened by racist Democrat voters dying off, and their children either abandoning racism and the Democrats, or else keeping their parents’ racism but abandoning the Democrats.
Nixon tried to get those racist Democrat voters to switch parties, but he failed. And his failed “Southern strategy” was not to gain those voters by pandering to them, but on the contrary by confronting them with hard truths. The “Southern strategy” told racist Democrat voters that on the issue of race they had already lost. Both parties were now against them. So if race was the one reason they had stuck with the Democrats, then it made no sense for them to continue to do so. Since the Democrats had come around to the Republican view on race, they should abandon that issue and vote on all the other issues on which the two parties were still different; and on all those other issues Republicans better represented the Southerners’ interests.
But it didn’t work; the Southerners were too bound to the Democrat plantation, and it was only their children who looked at both parties objectively and decided the Republicans were the better choice.
Yes that’s very broadly true. The timeline on generational cohort was largely; the Silent generation started splitting from d/prog in large numbers, the Boomers more so. Gen X like me grew up after desegregation and in integrated society from little league to K-12/Univ with Reagan as President and an occasional GoP Senate.
The d/prog unfortunately still cling to their fundamental racism in demanding society distinguish by ‘race’ to reward some and punish others. Picking winners and losers based on racial ID was then and remains today an evil, racist construct.
I think we need taxation of endowment income as a backup plan. Gotta get those “billionaires” – billion dollar endowments that is.
Not just as a backup plan. Do it anyway.
Progressively higher rates based on size of endowments, that helps smaller institutions, while punishing arrogant larger ones like Harvard.
If they don’t want to comply then they shouldn’t receive even one cent of federal money, and that includes federally backed student loans. But them make the loans to their students themselves they don’t follow the law
Making universities responsible for student loans is a very good idea. If the promote useless DEI programs and majors, they they take the hit for deadbeats.
They are clueless in Cambridge on the Charles.
Harvard: “We choose to protect our courageous commitment to indoctrinating students in Islamofascist, genocidal Jew-hate and anti-Israel venom.”
Mary Chastain summed up Harvard’s freeloading nicely.
Trump’s response should be to claw back Harvard’s payments for at least $50 billion.
Harvard: We don’t discriminate. We just have DEI.
Trump: DEI is discriminating illegally.
Harvard: Ok, it’s discriminating. But we’re not going to change it.
Trump: Ok, no more Federal checks.
—> We are here
Harvard: Ok, we give up.
Harvard: Ok, we give up.
Translation with secret decoder ring: “We’re still gonna do it, but we’re gonna call it something else.”
I think we have our second Hillsdale!
An involuntary one this time, but what the hell.
Yep, Harvard and the other lefty ideologues want to keep the federal gravy train rolling to fuel their grift. They feel entitled to it b/c they do ‘good’ v the rest of us unwashed peasants.
Trump is going right after the biggest fish to be the test case. Harvard has plenty of money to spend on lawyers and otherwise coercing the judicial system in its favor, but for sure, whatever survives against Harvard can be used against the other woke institutions with good effect.
In the meantime, if the courts can’t stop it, Harvard can be a truly private university and self-fund its research and students. The student part is relatively trivial. They can easily afford to give every admitted student a full ride.
I don’t mind Trump draining Harvard’s endowment a bit. I do mind the scum sucking bottom feeding lawyers getting rich over it.
There are worse strategies than forcing parasites on your enemies.
Sun Tzu the Art of War or Myamoto Mushashi Book of 5 Rings?
Machiavelli, The Prince?
Ok this got me curious and
https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/5-times-parasites-affected-the-course-of-wars/
Plenty of high powered lawyers among its alumni, too.
You think they’ll take the case pro bono? Ha!
I hope President Trump cuts off all money to Cultural Marxists Seminaries
Maybe they should ask Hillsdale college and a free other pro freedom, pro capitalist private schools about government intrusion.
Hillsdale quit taking fed student school loans because the liberal overreach tried to impose their rules on the school.
If they have so much money from my taxes they can give it away willy nilly then the congress needs to cut our taxes by half or more.
I agree that the Anti Semite race hustlers at Harvard don’t have to dismantle their racist DEI programs. It’s their choice. But they better not get another dime of taxpayer money, ever. Why my tax dollars go towards a college with an endowment like this in the first place defies belief. My respect for the Ivy League couldn’t get any lower.
Never mind ivy league. Henceforth they shall be called the Kudzu League for their invasiveness and destructiveness.
The Kudzu league is already an informal ‘thing’ being used to describe a group of excellent Univ in the South; Duke, Vandy, UVA, Wake Forrest GA.Tech among others.
Cool.
How about the Poison Ivy League then!
So… Harvard has a $53 B endowment.
Okay math whizzes! Pop quiz time:
The Fed has been giving them $9 B annually.
The average stock market return, as measured by the S&P 500 index, is about 10.8% over the last 10 years, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
How many years can Harvard continue “as is” with no cuts to programs while losing $9 B annually? ( To keep things simple let’s assume no other future payments into their endowment.)
Of course the actual situation is much more complex, so for convenience sake after doing our lazy guess we can double the amount of time before the endowment is completely depleted…
I just filed my 2024 income taxes. So many things I could have purchased for my family instead of Harvard. I should not have to pay for Harvard’s choices. With their own money they can teach anything, hire anybody, etc. they want. Stop federal funding of Harvard.
Harvard was actually stupid enough to think that when it took Caesar’s money, there’d be no strings attached.
Harvard thought wrong.
Actually, Harvard knew there were strings attached. It’s just that they were very comfortable with those strings.
Good deal! Harvard can start dipping into their endowment to fund scholarships, research projects, institutional operations and capital improvements.
No Federal Funds
Between DOGE and shutting off of the Higher Ed slush funds, we just might get a trillion in savings.
DEI. The “D” is diversity and it has no meaning because we all know it is the color of a person’s skin and not diversity of thought to the left. The “E” is for equity whatever the hell that means. Does it mean opportunity or outcome? Inclusion is the “I” and it doesn’t mean what it says because they use selective inclusion of only the people they want. They never allow any member of a group that disagrees with their mantra. The entire DEI nonsense is nothing but the left’s agenda to control who they want and associate with.
Harvard gets >$9 Billion per year from federal taxpayers.
Which is insane in any case.
Now they’re just begging for that to be terminated.
Happy to oblige.
They can def cut some stuff to Harvard but the question is what.
I think NIH funding is not going to be cut. Just my .02
I agree. He’s 100% correct.
And of course this is equally correct. If you don’t want to have those things dictated to you, don’t take the money. If you want to raise a generation of traitors, do it on your own dime.
Note that Harvard has a colorable claim, If they can show that the funding cuts were taken in retaliation for their exercise of their constitutional rights. The government may not take any action, even ones that are otherwise entirely within its power, to punish someone for expressing the wrong opinion. That’s why the NEA wasn’t allowed to cut funding from artists who defined popular opinion, and why Giuliani wasn’t allowed to cut funding from the Brooklyn Museum.
So they will try to make out that this is what’s happening here. And they may succeed for a while; it’s not an obviously wrong argument. But in the long run they won’t succeed; they may keep their funding this year, but they’ll be cut out of next year’s funding, or the year after’s.
Discovery would be super fun for the faculty, administration, students and those not admitted and not hired to get grilled on DEI benefiting some and harming others based on race,.ethnicity and so on. Gonna be one helluva database of SAT/ACT scores, GPA, rates of admission/hiring for unflavored groups to include political affiliation….which will be very useful in other actions as well.
I, for one, laud Harvard’s stunningly brave position that this venerable institution of higher learning is a private u., dammit, and they know they’re rights, ostensibly under the 1st Amendment and Civil Rights Act Title VI, to harass Jews on campus and blatantly discriminate as to race, sex and religion in admissions and hiring. Fine, as long as the taxpayers aren’t funding they’re open violation of the 14th Amendment with billions of dollars. They want they’re privacy!
Garber is supposed to be a Jew too. What self-respecting Jew would defend antisemitic practices. He should be ashamed of himself.
Cut their water off. They do not need our tax money.
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