Harvard refuses to comply with Trump admin’s order to shut down DEI, audit programs that ‘fuel antisemitic harassment’

On Monday morning, Harvard President Alan M. Garber announced that Harvard would not be complying with a list of orders from the Trump administration as the White House is reviewing $9 billion in federal funding that is going to the school.

"Late Friday night, the administration issued an updated and expanded list of demands, warning that Harvard must comply if we intend to 'maintain [our] financial relationship with the federal government.' It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner. Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the 'intellectual conditions' at Harvard," Garber said in a press release.

The letter that was sent by the Trump administration requested that all DEI programs at the school be dismantled, and that the school report to the Department of Homeland Security "any foreign student, including those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation" with regard to students that are "supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism."

It also requested that the school's faculty be subject to audits "such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse," which Garber said was in violation of the school's "constitutional rights."

Additionally, the Trump administration requested that the school "commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit those programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture."

Another point from the White House was that Harvard should install "merit-based admissions reform" and "cease all preferences based on race, color, national origin, or proxies thereof, throughout its undergraduate program."

Garber wrote that Harvard will still "work together to find ways, consistent with law, to foster and support a vibrant community that exemplifies, respects, and embraces difference" but will only abide by the legal standard set in Supreme Court case Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard, in which the court decided it is unlawful for colleges to make admission decisions "on the basis of race."

Some colleges, however, have already started to use loopholes in the legal framework of the Supreme Court decision, such as encouraging students to talk about race in college essays, according to Unherd.

According to the Harvard Crimson, two lawyers representing the school wrote a letter to federal officials and said, "Harvard will not accept the government’s terms as an agreement in principle."