Harvard can obviously afford this, but will other universities follow? Will there be a consequence other than financial? Hoping we can avoid making this political, but if not, I will flag and ask moderators to close it.
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I have also read elsewhere that another option might be to try to revoke the tax-exempt status of the non-complying universities. I am not a tax lawyer nor sufficiently knowledgeable about the U.S. Tax Code to know what would be involved in doing this successfully.
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Columbia caved - and still doesn’t have its money back but the list of haves and have nots may be small. And we never know when a have will cave. Right now its professors are suing.
It’s gonna be a long four years. Not even 3 months yet.
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Harvard updated their website homepage to highlight the research they’re doing. Seems like smart marketing to highlight where those $$$ were going.
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And will that then apply to conservative universities, churches, etc…? This is all so mind-blowing.
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Yes- every Texas mega-church, every Huckabee affiliated religious institution, every superstar pastor raising funds from old ladies on social security to purchase a private plane for their “ministry”, every private “academy” which quite by coincidence has no Black students or faculty… let’s see how the “no more non-profit status” crowd loves hearing their pet causes defunded.
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At the moment, I don’t really care what any Ivy League college chooses to do. 
Those with big budgets who are not relying on federal funding can choose to do whatever they want. Hillsdale College hasn’t used that for many years, which is why if you apply there, you cannot apply for federal financial aid…no FAFSA, etc. There are drawbacks to that for many students, of course. And the political climate at Hillsdale is very different from Harvard of course.
It’s definitely 
time.
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Really? Given how spineless so many other entities are, I am beyond thrilled that a powerful institution has stood up against Trump’s demands. I say Bravo Harvard.
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The Cuse is still standing
Go Orange
Fear the Turtle
And even where I would least expect it, it still exists, with a different name
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The case law here is well established. With Hillsdale, you are forced to adhere to things like Title IX. Which is why a school may not want to take Federal money. While problems with hate speech also fall under Title IX, the gov’t cannot decide what is being taught at universities, even though it funds them in part. If you look up the history of Academic Freedom and the courts, it falls under the first amendment and, generally, Academic Freedom is preserved and it is quite different from, for instance, working for a private company and accepting prohibitions of speech as a part of your employment.
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Here is the list of demands:
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Harvard had been doing a lot of the internal work with respect to antisemitism. In part, this was probably donor-driven but partly driven by leaders who realized that the constraints of DEI on expression and research were damaging the institution. They are putting forward rules of conduct (e.g. no disrupting classes or occupying buildings) with plans to enforce them. At one level, they are probably in the process of doing a lot of the things that the government has asked. If they do the appropriate things and they can pry money from the endowment and/or donors, they can survive while not allowing the Federal government to govern hiring and admissions.
This appears to be quite different from Columbia, which did not appear to be making any moves to change rules or enforce them before the threat of withdrawal of government funds. The potential loss of government funds was sufficient to get them to agree to a variety of things, probably more intrusive than those requested from Harvard.
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Harvard’s endowment is about 37x its annual federal revenue. Columbia’s is about 11x. So, yeah, pretty big difference in their ability to pivot from long term loss of grants. Princeton is in an even better position. It’s endowment is 66x its annual federal dollars. In Columbia’s case they would need to compensate for the loss of over 20% of their annual budget. And this is before the possible loss of tax exempt status, lawsuits, the possibility of blacklisting their faculty, etc. Many levers an unconstrained government can pull.
It will be interesting to see how many colleges that are highly dependent on federal funding hold out hope in the legal process, despite the evidence that even legal victories can be ignored by the executive branch.
Columbia had already changed some things before the funding threat, and was working through others at a glacial pace due to the rules of their Academic Senate. Those changes are partly why there has been so little activity on the Columbia campus this academic year. Few, short, poorly attended protests, no encampments or occupations, etc. It’s been quieter than many colleges. Heck, little Bowdoin was more of a hot bed of activity than Columbia.
Barnard’s campus (totally separate governance) has been more active but they were always the heart of the Columbia protests too. Half of those arrested in the first encampment were from Barnard. And all of the students involved in the one harassment of a Columbia class were from Barnard (and were expelled).
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There are also governance issues unique to each institution-- and the fear of another collusion type lawsuit. It’s not always clear how decisions get made (and who has to sign off on them) at places as complex as research U’s with multiple grad schools, stakeholders, complicated endowment set ups, etc.
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Reminder to use the Political Forum to discuss the politics around this issue. TIA
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Thanks for posting a link to the letter.
Some thoughts:
- it’s interesting that requesting/requiring merit-based hiring practices is controversial. If Harvard doesn’t want to do that, that’s certainly their choice.
- the merit-based admissions reform requirement shouldn’t be a surprise given the prior Supreme Court ruling on that topic. On the other hand, if they need a bassoon player next year for the orchestra and there’s a student who fits the bill but also happens to be in a DEI type of group of applicants, then yeah, it should be up to Harvard to admit the bassoon player.
- What sucks is all of the legacy admissions stuff that happens with colleges like this.
- Viewpoint diversity requirement - what’s the measurement by which they’re going to grade Harvard’s success with this?
- Re: the requirement for Harvard to not permit student groups that promote criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harrassment - I don’t understand why this is controversial.
- re: the requirement for Harvard to have a mask ban - That’s dumb. Let people wear a mask on campus if they want to.
- Whistleblower protection & reporting - Good luck with that.
- Everybody acts sometimes like the entire country’s thousands of colleges are going to crumble or something if an Ivy League school changes course on its policies on something. This is just one school. Harvard has every right to choose their own path. Just like every other school does.
- Harvard hasn’t been a safe haven for free speech for a pretty long time.
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Harvard presumably wants to be able to have its own definition of “merit”, not someone else’s definition of “merit” forced on it (“merit” can be defined differently by different people or organizations, even within the constraints of abiding by Supreme Court rulings).
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