How is Harvard pushing back against Trump? Are other elite schools toeing the line?

Harvard University is standing up to US President Donald Trump.

Trump on Tuesday threatened the tax-exempt status of Harvard – the oldest and among the most prestigious Ivy League schools in America.

This development comes after US officials froze $2 billion in federal grants to Harvard.

Trump has made similar funding cut threats to other universities including Columbia – which acceded to the president’s demands amid an outpouring of criticism.

The Trump administration has accused elite universities of being ‘woke’ and allowing anti-Semitism to run rampant on their campuses.

But Harvard is unmoved by Trump’s threats.

But how and why is Harvard standing up to Tump? Where do the other universities stand?

Let’s take a closer look:

What do we know?

Harvard is no pushover.

In fact, with an endowment of $53 billion, Harvard is the US’ most wealthy college, as per Bloomberg.

Harvard’s leadership has vowed to ‘defend’ the institution.

As per Politico, Harvard has refused to halt student protests, change its hiring and admission programmes, eliminate DEI programmes, and ban masks.

“The university will not surrender its independence or its constitutional rights,” Harvard president Alan M Garber was quoted as saying by CNN.

Garber on Monday said the Trump administration’s demands violate “Harvard’s First Amendment rights and [exceed] the statutory limits of the government’s authority.”

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Garber wrote.

The university has hired two powerhouse lawyers – William A Burck and ex-alum Robert Hur to represent it.

“Harvard — by virtue of its resources, its history and its commitment to free speech — is in a position to defend itself,” Steven Hyman, who previously served as Harvard’s provost, the school’s top academic officer, told the website_._

Ex-Treasury Secretary and former Harvard president Larry Summers told CNN, “One should not comply with a government that is being extra-lawful.”

“Universities are in need of a great deal of reform, and it’s come too slowly, but that’s not a reason why the government can entirely suspend the law and make up self-serving political demands and impose them on universities.”

Where do other universities stand?

Columbia

Columbia, which has been the epicentre of many anti-Israel protests after the October 7, 2023 attacks, has bowed to several demands of the Trump administration.

This came after the government froze $400 million in funding and detained Mahmoud Khalil, who led anti-Israel protests at Columbia.

Khalil, a legal permanent resident, is in the custody of immigration authorities.

He now faces deportation for his part in the protests.

As per BBC, protesters at Columbia are no longer allowed to conceal their faces.

They must present student ID when asked to.

“Our response to the government agencies outlines the substantive work we’ve been doing over the last academic year to advance our mission, ensure uninterrupted academic activities, and make every student, faculty, and staff member safe and welcome on our campus,” Interim president Katrina Armstrong said in an email.

Columbia has announced that new official will head up its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department. A new official will now lead that department.

“In this role, the Senior Vice Provost will review the educational programs to ensure the educational offerings are comprehensive and balanced,” it said, as per BBC.

The senior vice provost will “conduct a thorough review of the portfolio of programs in regional areas across the University, starting immediately with the Middle East”.

The university has also promised to take relook at admission procedures to “ensure unbiased admission processes.”

Columbia has been roundly criticised for toeing the line.

Princeton

Princeton has announced that it is backing up Harvard.

University president Christopher Eisgruber, taking to LinkedIn, wrote, “Princeton stands with Harvard.”

This came after Eisgruber told the New York Times there were “serious problems” with anti-Semitism at Columbia and Princeton.

However, Eisgruber insisted it is “not appropriate” for the government to intervene this way in institutes of higher learning.

We began to see precipitous threats to funding streams early on in the new presidential administration," Eisgruber was quoted as saying.

“Then a couple of weeks ago, something happened at Columbia that introduced a new, and, in my view, very dangerous element to this, which is that the government came in, and without any due process or any apparent investigation, said … ‘We’re going to take away a bunch of your grants … and we’re not going to restore them to you unless you do things like admissions reform.'”

As per Yahoo.com, the Trump government in April suspended research grants worth $210 million to Princeton.

The government further cut $4 million in funding for climate change research.

Princeton in 2024 took in $455 million in federal funding.

This includes money for its Department of Energy national laboratory.

Eisgruber has vowed not to bow to the Trump administration’s demands.

“We would not do that,” he said. “We believe that would be unlawful, and we would contest that in court. … I really think we all need to be speaking up right now.”

“It’s important for me to be using my voice, and it’s why, in response to a number of your questions, I’ve said, ‘Hey, I can tell you about what’s going on at Princeton, but I don’t think this is all about Princeton. It’s about what’s happening in the United States,’” Eisgruber said. “I think this would be so much stronger if many more of my fellow presidents were speaking up.

“America’s universities [are] under threat.”

Eisgruber in an op-ed for The Atlantic decried the Trump administration’s moves as “the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s.”

Stanford

Stanford has also expressed support for Harvard.

The strength of the nation’s universities “has been built on government investment but not government control,” Stanford University president Jonathan Levin and provost Jenny Martinez told the student newspaper The Stanford Daily.

“The Supreme Court recognised this years ago when it articulated the essential freedoms of universities under the First Amendment as the ability to determine who gets to teach, what is taught, how it is taught, and who is admitted to study.”

**Cornell and Northwestern
**

Cornell and Northwestern have not come out in support of Harvard.

The Trump government has moved to freeze $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell and $790 million in funding for Northwestern University

Both schools are being investigated for civil rights violations.

The funding being paused includes mostly grants and contracts with the federal departments of health, education, agriculture and defence, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

As per CNN, Cornell has said it is joining a lawsuit challenging the Energy Department’s proposed cuts to indirect costs.

That seems to be different than the frozen funding.

However, Risa Lieberwitz, president of Cornell’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, who is also a professor in the School of Labor and Relations, has spoken up against the Trump regime.

“This is a time to act on principle, and it’s a time to be brave,” she said.

“History also tells us that when institutions capitulate to autocratic demands, then the authoritarian government simply demands more,” Lieberwitz said.

Lieberwitz too drew a comparison to the McCarthy era.

“Institutions that stood up are remembered for standing up to that power and that coercion, they’re remembered for their acts of bravery,” Lieberwitz said. “Institutions that capitulated are remembered for their willingness to cave to autocratic demands.”

Cornell University said that while it had not received formal notification of the worth or total amount of funding freeze from the government, it did receive stop work orders from the defence department related to research on defence, health and cybersecurity. It added that it was seeking more information from the government.

Northwestern said it was aware of media reports about the funding freeze but had not received any official notification from the government and that it has cooperated in the investigation.

“Federal funds that Northwestern receives drive innovative and life-saving research, like the recent development by Northwestern researchers of the world’s smallest pacemaker, and research fueling the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. This type of research is now in jeopardy,” a Northwestern spokesperson said.

Brown

Brown University has not released a statement on the situation.

In April, the US government said it planned to freeze grants to Brown University.

A US official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the administration’s action would block $510 million in grants for Brown.

Experts say America is in a strange place at the moment.

Human rights advocates have raised free speech and academic freedom concerns over the crackdown by the Trump administration.

“Politicians have traditionally, bottom line, been proud of the fact that American higher education was the envy of the world,” Thomas Parker, a Harvard alum who is a senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a Washington-based advocacy organization, told Politico. “It is unprecedented for the view to be the opposite.”

“Historically, universities in general have been pretty good at fending off government intervention,” Parker said. “What I’ve been asking myself lately is, Harvard has made this historically important and grand gesture — but where’s everybody else? Where’s the coalition?”

With inputs from agencies