After Columbia University fully capitulated to the Trump administration’s demands of disciplinary measures against pro-Palestine students and censorship against academic departments, the Trump administration set its sights on other institutions of higher education, one of these being Harvard University. On April 11, Trump officials sent Harvard a similar demand letter to the one Columbia received on March 13. But Harvard’s response to Trump’s demands has been markedly different to Columbia’s – on April 14, Harvard’s President Alan M. Garber issued a bold response: Harvard would “not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
Trump’s demands of Harvard include adopting “merit-based” hiring and admissions, which has been understood as a right-wing attack against policies which aim to further racial and social equality and diversity. The demands letter also called on Harvard to target international students “supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism,” which is how the Trump administration often refers to pro-Palestine students, including by forcing Harvard to report students to the federal government.
After Garber’s response, that Trump administration has unleashed an onslaught of attacks against the institution, including immediately withholding over USD 2 billion in federal funding, threatening to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, threatening to revoke the institution’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program status, and demanding a record of the institution’s foreign funding.
While Trump’s moves are a significant financial blow to Harvard, the institution’s decision to defy the administration have caused record numbers of donations to pour in, receiving an average of 88 donations an hour. 77% of these donations have been less and USD 250, reports The Harvard Crimson.
Students demand “words into action”
But pro-Palestine students on campus are asking for more bravery from the institution, pointing to Harvard’s record of wielding disciplinary action against student activists, especially since October of 2023.
The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee was one of the first student groups in the US to issue immediate support for the Palestinian cause after October 7, publishing a bold statement signed by various Harvard student groups. “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” read the letter, published on October 8. “The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.” This statement began a wave of attacks from ultra-rich individuals connected to the university, including alum Bill Ackman, who called for the release of all names associated with the letter and a blacklist of those students from employment.
Harvard PSC responded to President Garber’s defiance of Trump, stating that, “Harvard has rightfully rejected Trump’s fascist, heightened demands. Now it must roll back its repression of Palestine Studies and solidarity orgs.”
The student group called on the Harvard administration to reverse several actions taken against the pro-Palestine movement on campus, and denounced several others. These actions include limits to academic freedom such as dismissing the faculty leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, providing documents to ultra-conservatives on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, canceling a panel with patients from Gaza, and cutting ties with Birzeit University in Palestine, suspending an academic program on “Religion, Conflict, and Peace” amid public accusations that it was too pro-Palestine, as well as sanctioning student protest including placing the Harvard PSC on probation following a rally on campus and banning students from entering a library on their campus for weeks following a peaceful “study-in” protest in said library.
“Garber was obviously right to resist Trump’s insane and illegal list of demands. The most active and conscious students, graduate workers, and university employees, though, know that he only did that because we had already blazed a trail for him, through our militant mass movements against Trump’s immigration policy and support for Israel’s crimes,” said Elias, a law student at Harvard and a student organizer. “Looking forward, we are building our independent organizations because we know that at the end of the day, Garber collects his paycheck because of our work, and he is not our friend,” Elias told Peoples Dispatch.
“In the face of genocide and fascism, Harvard must protect academic freedom including Palestine studies and its students despite funding cuts. Appeasement will never save the university,” wrote the Harvard PSC. “We must keep working to make sure Harvard’s words turn into action, and we will not rest until this action extends to Palestine studies and the student movement.”
