Pruning the Ivies

Several hundred Harvard University staff crammed into the Faculty Room in the historic University Hall on May 6, some sitting on the floor, surrounded by the busts of 15 past presidents and notable figures that line the perimeter.

It was the last regular meeting of the 2024-25 academic year—one that will likely go down in the history books at one of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest universities.

Hopi Hoekstra, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard’s largest division, braced the staff for “unprecedented challenge,” according to the campus newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. She predicted the university’s standoff with President Donald Trump’s administration would be drawn out and usher in “changes that will not be undone, at least not in the foreseeable future.”

Hoekstra’s speech came one day after U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent a contentious three-page letter to Harvard President Alan Garber blasting the university’s “disastrous mismanagement.” McMahon announced the federal government would not award new research grants until the university addressed the Trump administration’s list of demands. Those demands pertain to anti-­Semitism and racial discrimination on campus, abandonment of rigorous academic standards, and failure to allow “viewpoint diversity.”

The letter marked the first official response from the Trump administration since Harvard sued in April to halt the administration’s decision to slash billions of dollars’ worth of current federal research grants at the school. Trump has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status. On May 7, he signaled he might push for a review of other universities’ statuses, part of a wider campaign to freeze funds and force change at elite schools he says are overrun with progressive politics and anti-Semitism.

In a return letter to McMahon on May 12, Garber said his school “will not surrender.”

Trump’s clash with Harvard will test how much leverage the government has over high-­profile academic institutions long dependent on American taxpayer dollars. While the administration’s recent actions accelerated what many believe was a much-needed course correction, some fear it sets a dangerous standard.

“I hope it’s not being done primarily for ideological reasons to, in a heavy-handed way, put universities under the federal government’s thumb,” said Thomas Jipping, a senior legal fellow for the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

Students, faculty, and members of the Harvard University community rally on April 17. Associated Press

Federal law prohibits the executive branch from asking the IRS to investigate ­institutions operating as charitable organizations. Revoking an institution’s tax-exempt status entails a strict and lengthy legal process and “a narrow definition of when it’s appropriate,” Jipping told me. But that process is not always foolproof: In 2017, the IRS apologized after it was found unfairly targeting ­conservative groups’ tax-exempt status under the Obama administration.

Within higher education, small Christian colleges have historically been the target of government demands.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1983 the IRS could revoke Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status for racially discriminatory policies in a case involving interracial dating and marriage—even if those policies applied to religious beliefs.

In 1984, another small Christian liberal arts school, Grove City College, faced a different ultimatum: agree to all present and future government regulations or lose federal aid for students. The college took the matter all the way to the Supreme Court. The court decided the government’s authority extended only to the department receiving the funds, not the whole college. But Grove City decided it would opt out of federally funded student aid altogether.

Now, prestigious academic institutions are learning that money “comes with strings and moral, legal, and regulatory obligations,” said David Whalen, an English professor at Hillsdale College who previously held administrative roles including dean of faculty and provost. Hillsdale has maintained independence for 180 years by not accepting any state or federal money. “What’s happening now demonstrates the wisdom of that position,” he said.

Whalen added that academic institutions incur another kind of vulnerability when they “become a locus of social activism or political action.”

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparking an ongoing war, Harvard has faced growing public ­scrutiny for allowing anti-Semitism to flourish on campus. In late April, the university released reports detailing ­incidents of both anti-­Semitism and anti-Muslim bias. Garber called the previous academic year “difficult and painful” and announced a series of reforms to address the problem.

Beth Akers, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said that while it’s clear Harvard and other Ivy League universities violated the law by allowing anti-Semitic speech on campus, “we’re getting bogged down with [President Trump’s] approach, whether it’s legal or whether he has a vendetta against Harvard.”

Harvard contends the Trump administration’s demands demonstrate “unprecedented and improper control” over the university, with “chilling implications for higher education,” according to a May 6 statement. The university’s lawsuit claims the government violated the school’s First Amendment rights to academic freedom and failed to follow federal procedures when it revoked the research grants.

In recent months, the Trump administration has frozen funds at other top colleges including Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Princeton, and Cornell. The administration’s April 11 demand letter to Harvard said the school violated federal civil rights laws and “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.”

Dating back to around World War II, Harvard and other top research institutions have depended on federal money to support many of their projects. Today, universities account for 90% of all federal research spending, receiving about $60 billion in 2023, according to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

At Harvard’s May 6 faculty meeting, Hoekstra outlined an uncertain path forward, including cuts to the school’s research projects and workforce. The school has already instituted a hiring freeze and initial layoffs. It is selling $750 million in bonds, totaling $1.2 billion this fiscal year. Harvard has a $53 billion endowment, the largest in the world. But most of that money is restricted by donors, limiting how the university can spend it. During the 2024 fiscal year, Harvard secured about $687 million in federal research funds, 11% of its total revenues.

Will Creeley, legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, argues that even those who support the president’s funding freeze to clamp down on anti-Semitism at Harvard should be concerned about “the precedent it sets and the sacrificing of both legal and constitutional protections.”

“It’s a tricky moment, one that requires folks to have two ideas in their head at once,” Creeley told me. “These schools have been bad actors, but that doesn’t mean that we can break the law and the constitutional guardrails to address those problems.”