The fight between President Trump and Harvard University is at the boiling point. The administration has taken heavy measures in recent weeks, including ending all federal research grants to Harvard. Now, President Trump is threatening the tax-exempt status of Harvard. The two sides look increasingly irreconcilable: The administration sees Harvard as a bastion of left-wing extremism and are looking to make an example; Harvard leadership are, in their view, fighting not only for their precious political values on matters of diversity, but also for the very independence of their institution.
Unfortunately, amidst this developing melee, Trump risks abandoning the cornerstone of his plan for campuses: the eradication of antisemitism.
After weeks of back-and-forth letters and public statements last month, the Trump administration suspended $2 billion of federal funding for Harvard. The decision came just hours after Harvard confirmed that they would not be acquiescing to the administration’s demands for sweeping reforms to Harvard admissions, culture, and hiring. Since then, the Trump administration has continued to pile on pressure, especially after Harvard filed a lawsuit to formally challenge the president’s decision on the 21st of April.
The Trump administration maintains that combating antisemitism remains at the heart of their fight against Harvard. One of President Trump’s repeated election promises was to tackle the culture of hate on U.S. campuses, and his administration has been busy investigating universities ever since taking office. From Columbia to UCLA, the administration is pursuing positive reforms, such as changes to complaint processes and the adoption of a formal definition of antisemitism. A major victory for the Trump administration came when Columbia, a hot-bed of extremism, decided to comply with the administration’s sensible demands to reduce antisemitism on campus (following a $400 million federal funding freeze). These achievements are commendable, and show that the administration can be serious about eliminating the scourge of campus antisemitism.
If the Trump administration could find common ground with the Columbia leadership, why not Harvard? The answer seems to be that the Trump administration is playing a different game with Harvard than with other universities, and seem to be seeking to make a more political example. Put simply, many of the demands made to Harvard go well beyond the realm of combating antisemitism, and are more reflective of President Trump’s personal agenda.
Some on the right claim that the campaigns against DEI and antisemitism at universities are the same fight, symptoms of the same disease. Perhaps that’s true, and there is evidence to suggest that DEI programs can discriminate against Jewish students. But if that is the argument the administration is making, why create a tale of two Ivy Leagues by making different demands of Columbia and Harvard?
The 11 April letter circulated to Harvard (which they later rejected, prompting the funding freeze) from the administration does contain some important reforms that Harvard should accept, such as measures to improve complaints transparency and the conducting of reviews of teaching and curricula for bias and extremism. However, it also contains a litany of demands that are complete anathema to the liberal leadership of Harvard. These include a complete end to DEI programs in hiring and admissions, and clunky prescriptions to change the ideological makeup of the Harvard faculty.
This “tear-it-all-down approach” jeopardizes important reforms and needlessly bundles antisemitism with political issues. The Columbia example provides a different way. The administration was still very harsh on Columbia, rescinding $400 million of federal funding, but their demands were much more targeted to addressing antisemitism.
By focusing on DEI and other political issues, the administration is also inadvertently letting Harvard off the hook in the public sphere. Harvard’s “Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias” issued their final report on April 29; it makes for grim reading. The task force found that antisemitism increased dramatically following the Oct. 7 attacks, with Jewish students reporting that they felt the need to hide their Jewish identities for fear of antisemitic abuse. The Trump administration is handing Harvard an opportunity to shift focus away from their institutional failings and instead discuss the more political aspects of Trump’s demands, such as DEI programs and changes to the curriculum. President Trump is already facing accusations in the public sphere, from Harvard professors and Jewish Democrats, that he has turned antisemitism into a club to beat his political opponents into submission.
Now that Trump is hammering Harvard, Columbia seems to be getting cold feet. In a statement, Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, said that the university would not accept any deal that “would require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy as an educational institution.” The Trump administration should have seen this coming. They have made significantly different and more intrusive demands of Harvard than of Columbia. Of course, some supporters of Trump have lauded this decision to gun for a high-profile target and take the fight to them on other hot button issues like DEI initiatives. Agree with President Trump’s crusading or not, one can surely see the danger in lumping antisemitism policies in with ideological action on DEI.
On a practical basis, this will simply make reform harder. Already the progress with Columbia seems at risk and Harvard is clearly much more willing to fight the administration to protect their admissions and hiring policies, burying the important reforms under public spats and legal fees. Second, as antisemitism explodes across the world, those of us who take this threat seriously should be doing everything in our power to de-politicize reforms and solutions. By making DEI and admissions sticking points alongside antisemitism reforms, President Trump could unwittingly make the campus environment worse.
In the coming weeks and months, the protracted fight between Harvard and the Trump administration will focus on many competing aspects, from DEI and admissions to university autonomy. I fear that the important proposed changes to protect Jewish students will be buried. Already Harvard faculty are deflecting away from the antisemitism issue to attack Trump on his other demands. The Trump administration should reevaluate their approach to these negotiations to build a consensus on tackling antisemitism. Now is the time for President Trump to defy his critics and prove his administration's commitment to ending antisemitism on U.S. campuses.
