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🌊 Can Harvard Do What It Wants?

🌊 Can Harvard Do What It Wants?

How the Trump Administration's demands of Harvard launched a constitutional showdown over academic freedom

May 27, 2025

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By Max Frost

This April, the Trump Administration sent Harvard University a letter that would ignite one of the most significant battles over academic freedom in American history. The demands were sweeping: Reform discriminatory practices, ensure campus safety for Jewish students, eliminate political bias in hiring, and demonstrate viewpoint diversity.

The price of refusal? $2.3B in frozen federal funds.

Harvard said no.

What has followed is a confrontation that raises fundamental questions about accountability in higher education. Should universities receiving billions in taxpayer dollars be able to operate without oversight? Or do attempts to enforce standards violate the academic freedom that makes American universities so successful?

The tensions that produced the current showdown arguably began in October 2023, when Harvard student groups followed the October 7 attack with protests and statements in support of Hamas. As Jewish students reported feeling unsafe, major donors withdrew support, and criticism of the university’s response became increasingly widespread.

Fast forward to April 11, 2025, and a multi-agency federal task force sends a list of demands to Harvard. Among them, Harvard would have to conduct “viewpoint diversity” audits, which would involve working with an external panel to audit the ideological leanings of each department’s faculty and students, and then reducing the influence of those “more committed to activism than scholarship.”

Harvard would also have to commit to only hiring faculty and admitting students based on merit, with no preference for students based on their ethnicity or national origin, and to screen international students to prevent the admission of those “hostile to American values.” Foreign students who violate conduct rules would have to be reported to federal immigration authorities. The university would also have to de-recognize or defund certain student groups, some of which the administration specifically named.

The moves would “Make Higher Education Great Again by ending unchecked anti-Semitism and ensuring federal taxpayer dollars do not fund Harvard's support of dangerous racial discrimination or racially motivated violence," the White House said.

Harvard President Alan Garber's response was swift and unequivocal: "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."

Within hours of Harvard's refusal, the Trump Administration froze $2.3B in research grants and contracts. Weeks later, Trump said he would revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

So what are each side’s arguments?

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Editor’s Note

Thanks for reading. We’re curious to hear your takes on this. Are the Trump Administration’s demands fair? Is the lack of political diversity at Harvard concerning to you, or is this all overblown? Let us know by replying to this email.

In case you missed any of our most recent reports, find them below:

We got a lot of responses to Sunday’s article on Hasan Piker and allegations that he is somewhat responsible for the killings in DC last week. To be clear, in writing about this, we are not saying that he is responsible. Roca is reporting on the debate, which we thought would be of interest to you all.

Erev wrote:

Hasan didn't host Bad Empanada.

Hasan went on a charity stream to speak, and the person who ran the charity stream for Gaza wanted them to talk to each other to help fund the fund raiser.

Editor’s note: Good clarification, thank you. Hasan Piker did not host Bad Empanada (the streamer who suggested shooting Israel supporters); he appeared on a stream with him.

Amene wrote:

First off great article! As far as Hasan Piker goes I actually have never heard his podcast or watched any of his videos. The only thing I know of him is from reading the New Yorker magazine article earlier this year. I do know that my twenty year old son has listened to him and Joe Rogan alike and that podcasters are how most of Gen Z gets information.

I would also like to say before I write my piece that violence and hatred of any kind, be it Antisemitism or Islamophobia has no place anywhere.

Israel loves to murky the lines between anti Zionism and Antisemitism. There is a very clear line between the two. Being against Israeli policy and even ideology does NOT mean you hate Jews. There are many Jews around the world both in Israel and outside who do not agree with its ideology. Zionism is the establishment and preservation of a Jewish state in the holy land of Palestine ( Israel). God has granted that land to the Jews. Many believe they have the right to obtain that land at any cost, regardless of who is there already. For many of us around the world this is an absurd concept, especially to base governance of a nation on. A few weeks ago an Antisemitism group online sent a letter to Pam Bondi asking her to investigate Ms Rachel, modern day Mr Roger’s, for antisemitism and supporting Hamas. This is because she talked about the horrible plight of Gaza’s children. When the UK, France and Canada came out last week threatening sanctions against Israel’s continuing humanitarian blockade of Gaza, Netanyahu called them all antisemitic. All the pro Palestinian college protesters have been labeled with antisemitism when in fact one of the largest student groups is Jewish Voice for Peace. They recently took over the Trump building in New York with red T shirts that read “Not in my Name.” Thousands of Israeli citizens turn out weekly to protest the Netanyahu government and the war in Gaza. Hundreds of reserve have refused to fight in Gaza. Are they all also antisemitic?

Blurring the lines between antisemitism and anti Zionism is a way for Israel and those who support Israeli politics to subdue any decent against their policies and actions. It’s a way to justify their genocide This itself is an impeachment on free speech. Keep writing!

And Shanna wrote:

This became much more clear to me on and after October 7. While anti-semitism is hate directed towards jewish people directly, anti-Zionism is hatred for the only place in the world where Jews are protecting Jews- the only place where Jews are not crossing their fingers hoping their non-Jewish government doesn’t turn on them (it’s been happening repeatedly in almost every country for thousands of years circa Pharoah and the Exodus). Anti-Zionism seeks to destroy the Jewish homeland completely, not simply critique it. Modern Israel was created completely legally through the Balfour Declaration and the UN vote. The only reason there was any violence upon Israel’s creation was because a war was started by the leaders of Arab countries who did not want a Jewish state to exist. israel handled that independence war far more morally than the events leading to US independence, yet no one is going around saying “Destroy America” (well Jihadists are but that’s a slightly different conversation). My point in saying this is - you can critique a government, but to say the whole country shouldn’t exist, when it’s the only place of real security for Jews, has the same effect as anti-semitism. This is not a coincidence. The instigators of anti-Zionism ideas are openly anti-semitic groups, for example, Hamas, who has led the charge in anti-Zionism social media propaganda from what I can tell. They know what they are doing. They are strategically and ‘inconspicuously’ promoting anti-Zionism as a thinly veiled way to accomplish what anti-semitism accomplishes: destruction of the Jews.

Thanks to all who wrote in, keep the replies coming! See you tomorrow.

–Max and Max