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      Hope as US universities find ‘backbone’ against Trump’s assault on education

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      Americans anxious about their country’s slide into authoritarianism found some solace in the past week over what appears to be growing pushback by American universities against Donald Trump’s assault on higher education.After a barrage of orders, demands and the freezing of billions in federal funds for research had elicited a mostly demure response from university leaders, some are starting to mount a more muscular defense of academic freedom. A statement denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” was signed by more than 400 university presidents, and the list is growing. Another, signed by more than 100 former university heads, called for a coalition of local leaders, students, labor unions and communities, across party affiliation, to “work against authoritarianism”.And Harvard became the first university to sue the administration over its threats to cut $9bn in federal funding should it not comply with a set of extreme demands to combat alleged antisemitism, demands that university president Alan Garber labeled “unlawful, and beyond the government’s authority”. The legal action followed several others brought by higher education associations and organisations representing faculty, including one by the American Association of University Professors challenging the administration’s revocation of student visas and detention of several international students, which 86 universities joined with amicus briefs.But Trump was not cowed, continuing his weeks-long assault on universities he has accused of being “dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics”. Delivering on campaign threats, he issued a fresh set of executive actions on Wednesday targeting campus diversity initiatives and seeking to overhaul the accreditation system that has long served as quality check on higher education. And despite reports that the White House had made overtures to Harvard to restart talks about its demands – overtures the school has rejected – his tone suggested otherwise in a Truth Social rant in which he called the Ivy League school “a threat to Democracy” and “an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart”.But even as universities reposition themselves as defenders of free and independent inquiry, many are stepping up their measures to suppress pro-Palestinian discourse, issuing a flurry of warnings and punishments meant to avert a repeat of the mass protest encampments that sprung up across US campuses a year ago.View image in fullscreenThose measures, against protests and criticism of Israel in classrooms and other university settings, echo some of the demands made by the administration of various universities. While the government has gone much further – requiring, for example, the removal of entire academic departments from faculty control and “auditing” student and faculty’s viewpoints – universities have taken other measures slammed by faculty, students and free expression experts as draconian repression of legitimate political speech.This week, Yale University revoked the recognition of a student group that on Tuesday pitched tents on campus to protest a talk by Israel’s far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, while Columbia University, which has largely capitulated to the Trump administration’s demands, issued a warning to students planning to reestablish protest encampments it banned after last year’s protests.At Tulane University in New Orleans, seven students are facing disciplinary action over their participation at an off-campus pro-Palestinian protest (the university maintains the protest was organised by a student group it had banned). At Columbia, two Palestinian student activists have been charged with “discriminatory harassment” over what the university believes is their role in publishing an op-ed in the university paper, and two Instagram posts, calling for restrictions on the admission of former Israeli soldiers to the university.At Indiana University, a professor of Germanic studies became the first scholar to come under investigation under a new state law mandating “intellectual diversity” after a student accused him of pro-Palestinian speech in the classroom. And in Michigan, the FBI and local authorities raided the homes of several pro-Palestinian students on Wednesday, confiscating electronics and briefly detaining two students, as part of a state investigation into a string of alleged vandalism incidents, including at the home of the University of Michigan’s regent. While the university did not appear to be directly involved in the operation, student activists there noted that the raids followed its “repeated targeting of pro-Palestine activists” through “firings, disciplinary measures, and criminal prosecution”.“In order to give any meaning to free speech, academic freedom, equal rights, and the pursuit of truth and justice, universities have to make drastic changes to their conduct over the last year and a half,” said Tori Porell, an attorney at Palestine Legal, which has represented many students facing universities’ disciplinary action and in the last year received more than 2,000 requests for legal support. “That very conduct has put them and their students and faculty in danger. If universities are serious about standing up to Trump and putting their words into action, they will provide meaningful protection for their students, faculty, and staff.”View image in fullscreenSo far, the Trump administration has shown no signs it intends to slow down its attack on universities – with the education department warning 60 institutions that they are under investigation over alleged antisemitism. But Harvard’s lawsuit, and the first efforts at a unified response, set the stage for what is likely to become a protracted battle.“I think now that we’ve seen Harvard stand up and push back against the unwarranted government intrusion, that we’ll see more of this moving forward,” said Lynn Pasquerella, the president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, which has been coordinating university presidents’ collective response to the administration’s actions.Advocates for academic freedom who had previously criticised universities for a weak response to the administration’s “bullying” welcomed Harvard’s suit but called on schools to use the opportunity to show a more consistent defense of free speech and academic freedom.“This legal challenge is a necessary defense of institutional autonomy and the first amendment,” said Tyler Coward, the lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), noting that the group had long been critical of Harvard’s “commitment” to freedom of expression, for instance after the university adopted a controversial definition of antisemitism that Fire warned would “chill” campus speech.“We hope this moment marks a turning point – away from a model of civil rights enforcement that enables government overreach and toward one that protects free speech, academic freedom, and due process.”But while students, faculty and advocates across the country expressed measured hope that some university leaders were starting to grow a “backbone”, they noted it was students and faculty who were leading the charge and mounting the pressure that forced university leaders to act.“The workers and the unions, faculty, students, staff are leading and developing the fight in how to respond to the Trump administration, and we’re sort of dragging the universities along with us, slowly,” said Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, which has led faculty organising efforts on many campuses and filed four separate lawsuits against the administration over its attacks on universities.Wolfson noted that faculty continues to be critical of how universities are handling campus affairs, including pro-Palestinian speech, as well as their engagement with the Trump administration.“But nonetheless, the attacks on the university right now are not being initiated by the administrations of those universities, they’re being initiated by the federal government,” he said. “And so we must band together, where it’s possible, with our administrations to fight back.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: president targets diversity at US universities; Trump accuses Zelenskyy of endangering peace deal

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      Donald Trump has signed executive orders targeting US universities as his administration seeks to reshape higher education institutions and crack down on diversity and inclusion efforts.The actions address foreign gifts to universities as well as college accreditation, which the president has referred to as his “secret weapon” to upend US universities.Trump has also taken aim at the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while giving the clearest hint yet that the US would be willing to formally recognise Russia’s seizure of Crimea as part of any peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.Trump continues attack on universitiesThe Trump administration continued its all-out assault on US universities on Wednesday as the president signed executive orders cracking down on college accreditation and foreign gifts.While reading the orders to Donald Trump, White House staff secretary Will Scharf said the third-party groups that accredited universities had relied on “woke ideology” rather than merit.“We should be looking at those who have real merit to get in, and we have to look harder at those universities that aren’t enforcing that,” Linda McMahon, the education secretary, added during the signing in the Oval Office.Read the full storyTrump accuses Zelenskyy of jeopardising imminent peace dealDonald Trump has accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of endangering what he claimed was an imminent peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, hinting that the US would be willing to formally recognise Russia’s seizure of Crimea as part of any agreement.“Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian Territory,” Trump wrote, implying that the US was willing to do so. “If he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?”Read the full storyStates sue to stop Trump’s ‘insane’ tariff policyA dozen states have sued the Trump administration to stop its tariff policy, saying it is unlawful and has brought chaos to the American economy.Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, called Trump’s tariff scheme “insane” and said it was “not only economically reckless – it is illegal”.Read the full storyUS peace plan for Russia-Ukraine war emergesThe contours of the White House’s “final” peace proposal to halt the Russian invasion of Ukraine have come into focus with proposals to freeze the frontlines in exchange for terms that critics have termed a surrender to Russian interests in the three-year-old conflict.Read the full storyStock markets climb as Trump backtracksStock markets have risen around the world after Donald Trump said his tariffs on China would come down “substantially” and he had “no intention” of firing the chair of the US central bank, Jay Powell.Read the full storyDick Durbin retires from US SenateThe Senate’s second-highest ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin, announced he will not seek re-election in 2026, bringing an end to a Senate career that spans nearly three decades. In a video statement posted online, Durbin said: “I truly love being a United States senator, but in my heart I know it’s time to pass the torch.”Read the full storyFears grow that leaks make Hegseth top espionage targetAs more develops about the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and his repeated disclosures of sensitive military intelligence in unsecured Signal group chats, there are growing concerns his behavior has weakened the Pentagon in the eyes of its foreign adversaries and made him and his entourage a top espionage target.Read the full storyJudge accuses White House of ‘bad faith’ in Ábrego García caseThe federal court that has found itself in a pitched battle with the executive branch over the summary removal of Salvadorian Kilmar Ábrego García despite a previous order against deportation has now accused the Trump administration of “bad faith” in the case.Read the full storyTrump sets Noaa on ‘non-science trajectory’, workers warnThe Trump administration has shunted one of the US federal government’s top scientific agencies onto a “non-science trajectory” that threatens to derail decades of research and leave the US with “air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable”, say workers.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro described shattered glass, melted furniture and burnt prayer books after arson at his residence weeks ago.

      Norway has launched a new scheme to lure top international researchers amid growing pressure on academic freedom in the US under the Trump administration.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 22 April 2025. More

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      Trump signs orders cracking down on diversity and inclusion at US universities

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      Donald Trump signed executive orders on Wednesday targeting universities as his administration seeks to reshape higher-education institutions and continues to crack down on diversity and inclusion efforts.The actions address foreign gifts to universities, directing the federal government to “enforce laws on the books” related to the disclosure of large donations, and college accreditation, which the president has referred to as his “secret weapon” to upend US universities. While reading the orders to Trump, the White House staff secretary Will Scharf said that the third-party groups that accredit universities have relied on “woke ideology” rather than merit.Linda McMahon, the education secretary, added during the signing in the Oval Office: “We should be looking at those who have real merit to get in, and we have to look harder at those universities that aren’t enforcing that.”Trump’s administration has been engaged in an all-out attack on US universities since the president took office in January, seeking to dramatically alter institutions he has claimed have been taken over by “Marxist maniacs and lunatics”. The federal government has sought to cut billions in funding from universities unless they comply with administration demands; banned diversity initiatives; and detained international students in retaliation for their activism.This week, more than 150 US university presidents signed a statement condemning the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” in higher education. Meanwhile, Harvard University – which Scharf mentioned by name when introducing the order related to foreign gifts – has sued the government in response to the threatened funding cuts.The president has referred to accreditation as a “secret weapon” in his fight against universities.“I will fire the radical-left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics,” he said last summer. “We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once for all.”According to a statement from the White House, the order directs McMahon to hold accreditors accountable with “denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition, for accreditors’ poor performance or violations of federal civil rights law”. It also orders administration officials to investigate “unlawful discrimination” in higher education.The White House alleges accreditors have imposed “discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-based standards”, which it describes as a violation of federal law and an abuse of their authority.While signing orders on Wednesday that Scharf said would direct schools out of the “whole sort of diversity, equity and inclusion cult”, the president said that the US was “getting out of that … after being in that jungle for a long time”.Despite his condemnation of diversity and inclusion efforts, Trump also signed an order establishing a White House initiative on historically black colleges and universities to promote “excellence and innovation”. The order facilitates the creation of a presidential advisory board on HBCUs and seeks to address funding barriers and increase affordability and retention rates.The president also signed orders related to workforce development and artificial intelligence education to ensure the future workforce is “adequately trained in AI tools”, Scharf said. More

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      ‘National disgrace’: US lawmakers decry student detentions on visit to Ice jails

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      Congressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.“We stand firm with them in support of free speech,” the Louisiana congressman Troy Carter, who led the delegation, said during a press conference after the visits on Tuesday. “They are frightened, they’re concerned, they want to go home.”Öztürk, a Tufts University PhD student, and Khalil, a graduate of Columbia, have been detained for more than a month since US immigration authorities took them into custody. Neither have been accused of criminal conduct and are being held in violation of their constitutional rights, members of the delegation said.The delegation included representatives Carter, Bennie Thompson, Ayanna Pressley, Jim McGovern, Senator Ed Markey, and Alanah Odoms, the executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. They visited the South Louisiana Ice processing center in Basile, where Öztürk is being held, and traveled to the Central Louisiana Ice processing center in Jena to see Khalil.They met with Öztürk and Khalil and others in Ice custody to conduct “real-time oversight” of a “rogue and lawless” administration, Pressley said.Their detention comes as the Trump administration has staged an extraordinary crackdown on immigrants, illegally removing people from the country and seeking to detain and deport people for constitutionally protected free speech that it considers adverse to US foreign policy.“It’s a national disgrace what is taking place,” Markey said. “We stand right now at a turning point in American history. The constitution is being eroded by the Trump administration. We saw today here in these detention centers in Louisiana examples of how far [it] is willing to go.”McGovern described those being held as political prisoners. He said: “This is not about enforcing the law. This is moving us toward an authoritarian state.”Late last month, officials detained Öztürk, who co-wrote a piece in a Tufts student newspaper that was critical of the university’s response to Israel’s attacks Palestinians. The 30-year old has said she has been held in “unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane” conditions in a Louisiana facility and has had difficulty receiving medical treatment.Öztürk was disappeared when she was detained, Pressley said, adding that she was denied food, water and the opportunity to seek legal counsel. Khalil missed the birth of his first child, she said. She described Donald Trump as a dictator with a draconian vision for the US.“They are setting the foundational floor to violate the due process and free speech of every person who calls this country home, whatever your status is,” she said. “It could be you tomorrow for suffering a miscarriage. It could be you tomorrow for reading a banned book.”Those in custody are shaken and were visibly upset and afraid, the delegation said. They have said they are not receiving necessary healthcare and that the facilities are kept extremely cold.“We have to resist, we have to push back. We’re a much better country than this,” McGovern said.Earlier this month a judge ruled that Khalil, who helped lead demonstrations at Columbia last year and has been imprisoned for more than a month, is eligible to be deported from the US.The Trump administration has argued that Khalil, a lawful permanent resident of the US and child of Palestinian refugees, holds beliefs that are counter to the country’s foreign policy interests.On Monday, Senator Peter Welch of Vermont met with Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia student who was detained while at a naturalization interview. More

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      Over 100 US university presidents sign letter decrying Trump administration

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      More than 100 presidents of US colleges and universities have signed a statement denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” with higher education – the strongest sign yet that US educational institutions are forming a unified front against the government’s extraordinary attack on their independence.The statement, published early on Tuesday by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, comes weeks into the administration’s mounting campaign against higher education, and hours after Harvard University became the first school to sue the government over threats to its funding. Harvard is one of several institutions hit in recent weeks with huge funding cuts and demands they relinquish significant institutional autonomy.The signatories come from large state schools, small liberal arts colleges and Ivy League institutions, including the presidents of Harvard, Princeton and Brown.In the statement, the university presidents, as well as the leaders of several scholarly societies say they speak with “one voice” and call for “constructive engagement” with the administration.“We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight,” they write. “However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.”Harvard’s lawsuit comes after the administration announced it would freeze $2.3bn in federal funds, and Donald Trump threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status, over claims the university failed to protect Jewish students from pro-Palestinian protests. The suit and the statement, taken together, mark an increasingly muscular response from universities following what initially appeared to be a tepid approach.While some university leaders have in recent weeks criticised the administration and indicated they will not abide by its demands, the statement marks the first time presidents have spoken out collectively on the matter. The joint condemnation followed a convening of more than 100 university leaders called by the AAC&U and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences last week to “come together to speak out at this moment of enormity”, said Lynn Pasquarella, the president of the AAC&U.Pasquarella said that there was “widespread agreement” across a variety of academic institutions about the need to take a collective stand.“Much has been written about this flood-the-zone strategy that’s being used in the current attacks on higher education, and it’s a strategy designed to overwhelm campus leaders with a constant barrage of directives, executive orders, and policy announcements that make it impossible to respond to everything all at once,” she said, explaining why it has taken until now for a joint response. “Campus leaders have had a lot to deal with over the past few months, and I think that’s part of the reason, but it’s also the case that they are constrained by boards, by multiple constituencies who are often asking them to do things that are at odds with one another.”The Trump administration has issued a barrage of measures aimed at universities the right has described as “the enemy” – some under the guise of fighting alleged antisemitism on campuses and others in an explicit effort to eradicate diversity and inclusion initiatives. Billions in federal funds are under threat unless universities comply with extreme demands, such as removing academic departments from faculty control, “auditing” the viewpoints of students and faculty, and collaborating with federal authorities as they target international students for detention and deportation. Along with its actions against Harvard, it has threatened and in some cases withheld millions more from Cornell, Northwestern, Brown, Columbia, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.Columbia has largely accepted the administration’s requirements to restore funding, including placing an academic department under outside oversight. Its president did not sign the collective statement.The measures against the schools, which are already upending academic research, undermine longstanding partnerships between the federal government and universities, and are contributing to an atmosphere of repression, the statement’s signatories note.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation,” they write.Last week, Harvard University issued the strongest rebuke yet of the administration’s demands, with president Alan Garber setting off a showdown with the White House by saying that the university would not “surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights”.While Harvard’s lawsuit was the first by a university, higher education associations and organisations representing faculty have filed other legal challenges over the cuts.Faculty at some universities are also organising to protect one another, with several members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, a consortium of some of the country’s largest state universities, signing on to a resolution to establish a “mutual defence compact”.At a second convening by the AAC&U on Monday some 120 university leaders also discussed what steps they may take next, including efforts to engage their broader communities and the business world to defend academic freedom.The joint statement, Pasquarella added, was just the beginning, and intended “to signal to the public and to affirm to ourselves what’s at stake here, what’s at risk if this continual infringement on the academy is allowed to continue”. 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      Trump’s political bullying of Harvard will do nothing to foster diversity of thought | Kenan Malik

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      Few people want to live in an echo chamber. Many have no problem being friends with those who vote differently to the way they do. And many would probably agree with John Stuart Mill that “he who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that” – that to truly know one’s own argument, one must also know the arguments of those who disagree.How to create a culture that encourages more fruitful engagement between those of differing political views has become a key question in contemporary public debate. Nowhere more so than in universities, where there has been much debate about “viewpoint diversity”, the aspiration to nurture differing and conflicting perspectives within an institution or group as a means of sharpening arguments and teasing out truths.Universities have in recent decades become recognised as predominantly liberal institutions in which the range of debates can be constrained, both by the fact that most people share a similar perspective and by a culture wary of ideas deemed offensive or hurtful. Hence the growing calls for greater viewpoint diversity. The desire to create a richer culture of intellectual engagement and debate has also, however, been turned into a political cudgel, as in the current standoff between Donald Trump and Harvard University. The Trump administration sent to Harvard, as to many other elite colleges, a series of demands for the reorganisation of its governance and procedures, and for the reform of myriad departments deemed too radical.It is part of an attempt to impose political authority over academic life. One key demand is that any department “lacking viewpoint diversity” must hire new faculty members to transform its political complexion. University authorities must “audit” political views and only hire staff whose politics would ensure greater diversity of opinion.To engage with conservative perspectives is vital. This, though, is identity politics of a particularly pernicious kind packaged as a challenge to “woke” beliefs, a form of social engineering that conservatives normally denounce. Whatever happened to their insistence that the person best qualified for a job should get it?Nor is it easy to see what political balance might mean. How many conservatives should there be? How many Marxists? Should there be a quota for Jews supporting the Palestinian struggle? Or for Hamas-hating Muslims?At the same time as demanding viewpoint diversity, the White House insists that “Harvard must abolish all criteria, preferences and practices … throughout its admissions and hiring practices, that function as ideological litmus tests”. How then can the university collect data on the political views of potential hires, even were that acceptable practice, to refashion every department’s ideological complexion as Trump demands?These are not merely problems and contradictions within Maga world but reflect conundrums within much of the discussion around viewpoint diversity. The lack of viewpoint diversity can be a real issue. The solutions proffered, though, often threaten to make the problem worse. Trump’s demand is in essence for universities to introduce affirmative action for conservatives while abolishing diversity policies in every other sphere. Similar ideas have long percolated through liberal arguments for viewpoint diversity.In an address to the American Psychological Association in 2001, psychologist and legal scholar Richard Redding argued for “affirmative-action-like practices” to increase the numbers of conservatives in academia. Many others, such as the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who helped establish the Heterodox Academy as an academic forum for diverse views, and Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University in Connecticut and a fierce critic of Trump’s assault on universities, have followed suit, arguing, in Roth’s words, for “an affirmative-action program for the full range of conservative ideas and traditions”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPolitical scientist Eric Kauffman, director of Buckingham University’s Centre for Heterodox Social Science, argues that he is “not advocating affirmative action”, but insists, too, that what “a university decides to do on gender and race in terms of equity and diversity and inclusion … should be matched by equal action on ideological and political equity, diversity and inclusion”.Fostering diversity of opinion, nurturing a richer culture of debate and encouraging freedom of expression are all vital aims. But, in advocating affirmative action for certain political viewpoints, institutionalising individuals’ political identities, and making political beliefs legitimate criteria for admission and recruitment, the proposed solution, cultural anthropologist Richard Shweder observes, “embraces the very problem it diagnoses”.In defining academics by their political views, the traditional vision of scholarly objectivity, as another anthropologist Nicolas Langlitz notes, becomes subverted. Max Weber, perhaps the most influential of 20th-century sociologists, proposed a “value-neutral approach” by which one aimed to be objective irrespective of one’s politics. Many now view Weber’s approach as naive, given that “nobody has found a way to eradicate confirmation bias in individuals”, as Haidt and his colleagues have argued. All that is possible, they suggest, is to “diversify the field to the point where individual viewpoint biases begin to cancel each other out”. In other words, ensure that liberal bias in research becomes countervailed by conservative bias. This may work in many circumstances but, in others, it may make the search for answers more difficult.In many disciplines within the social sciences or the humanities, the political stance of the scholar can be vital to the argument – for instance, in the difference between conservative, liberal and Marxist views of globalisation. Here, robust debate is essential but there may be no “neutral” position to be arrived at by washing out the “biases”.I began by suggesting that few people want to live in an echo chamber. Nevertheless, societies have also become more fragmented and the politics of identity have helped create a more Balkanised world. It is a culture particularly entrenched in universities, where, as Shweder observes, “exposure to arguments and evidence that challenges one’s convictions” can often be experienced “as trauma or as the creation of a hostile work environment”.These are not issues confined to universities, nor to one side of the Atlantic. These are cultural changes we all need to confront. They are also cultural shifts that cannot be remedied through state mandates or bureaucratic procedures.What we need, rather, is to rethink what is meant by social and political engagement and, in particular, to encourage and celebrate, in place of Balkanised intellectual silos, what Shweder calls “the capacity of the human mind to stay on the move between different points of view”. More

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      The showdown between Harvard and the White House – day by day

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      It took Harvard University less than 72 hours to reject a series of demands put forth by the Trump administration, setting up a high-stakes showdown between the US’s wealthiest and oldest university and the White House.The swift rebuke on Monday came after weeks of mounting pressure from Harvard faculty, students and alumni and the city of Cambridge, all urging the university to defend itself, and higher education as a whole, against what they saw as an unprecedented attack from Washington.Harvard was one of the first universities to face national scrutiny following 7 October 2023 and the ensuing campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, as critics accused the school and its leaders of failing to adequately combat antisemitism on its campus.And this February, just weeks into Trump’s presidency, the administration’s new Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced that it would be visiting 10 universities, including Harvard, in an effort to “eradicate antisemitic harassment” in schools.Soon after, the White House went after Columbia University, first launching a review of its federal funding, and then revoking $400m in federal funds from the school, citing the college’s failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment amid the campus protests against the war in Gaza.View image in fullscreenIn response, groups of Harvard faculty, alumni and students as well as Cambridge community members began calling on their own university leaders – through protests, letters, op-eds and resolutions – to publicly oppose the administration’s actions and to resist any future demands and pressure from the White House.On 6 March, the day before Columbia’s funding was cut, Harvard professors Ryan Enos and Steven Levitsky penned an op-ed in the Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, criticizing the university’s silence, and urging Harvard leaders to set an example by making “a firm public defense of democracy”.Days later, immigration authorities arrested Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, and Trump officials warned 60 universities of potential penalties tied to antiseminism investigations.That week, nearly 200 Harvard affiliates gathered on campus and protested Khalil’s detention, and urged the university to condemn the administration’s actions.Enos and Levitsky followed with another op-ed, this time titled: “First they came for Columbia.”“So far, America’s leading universities have remained virtually silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education,” they wrote. “That must change. Harvard must stand up, speak out, and lead a public defense of our freedom to speak and study freely.”The piece resonated widely within the Harvard community, Enos said, even reportedly reaching Harvard’s board of overseers (one of the school’s two governing bodies).Enos decided to write to several members of the board of overseers, sharing arguments from his recent op-eds. He had heard that some board members were sympathetic to their view.In mid-March, universities watched Columbia yield to a series of sweeping demands made by the Trump administration in an effort to restore the halted funding. (The funding remains withheld, and reports now suggest that a possible consent decree is on the table.)Enos and others feared that when the time came, Harvard might follow suit. At that point, Enos said, Harvard’s leadership had shown “no indication” that they were willing to put up a public fight in defense of Harvard or public education more generally.In the weeks prior, the university had appeared to be taking pre-emptive steps to get ahead of the administration’s potential crackdown and funding cuts. They announced a university-wide hiring freeze, and made several decisions that critics viewed as aligning with the administration’s priorities.The university adopted a controversial definition of antisemitism in a legal settlement over complaints brought by Jewish students, ousted two leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies, suspended a public health partnership with Birzeit University in the West Bank and a “religion, conflict and peace initiative” at the Harvard Divinity School amid accusations that it focused “entirely on the Palestinians”, and banned the Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee from hosting events on campus.These actions caused concern for some who worried that Harvard was compromising academic freedom to appease the government.“Someone might reasonably think that these changes were in order to accommodate, to demonstrate to the federal government, look, we’re closing down programs that have been accused of imbalanced coverage,” said Kirsten Weld, a professor of history at Harvard, who heads Harvard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).On 24 March, Enos and Levitsky, with help from several others, circulated a letter among faculty, urging Harvard’s two governing boards to publicly condemn the attacks on universities, legally contest and resist unlawful demands, and mount a coordinated opposition.More than 800 faculty members signed, though some non-US citizens refrained due to fear, Enos said.The letter was sent to governing board members before their next scheduled meeting, which was to be on 5 and 6 April.Separately, in another letter, more than 1,000 Harvard alumni urged Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, to defend academic freedom and free speech, and to take a stronger stand.“We cannot appease the Trump administration – it always asks for more,” the letter warned.James Stodder, who drafted and circulated that letter, said that he and a group of other alumni were looking for ways they could make their voices heard.Another alumni letter with more than 1,200 signatures called for courage over capitulation.In late March, Harvard’s chapter of the AUP along with the national chapter and other groups, sued the Trump administration, alleging it had violated members’ first amendment rights by targeting pro-Palestinian speech by noncitizens.Around this time, the Crimson was reporting that Garber had been privately discussing the administration’s pressure campaign with other university leaders.Then, on 31 March, the Trump administration put Harvard directly in its crosshairs, announcing a review of Harvard’s $9bn in federal funding, citing alleged failures to address antisemitism on campus.Garber’s response was seen by some as conceding to the administration’s narrative and suggestions.On 3 April, Trump officials sent Harvard a letter, stating that its federal funding would be conditional on changes such as eliminating diversity and inclusion programs, reviewing its programs “to address bias”, cooperating with law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security, installing leaders to implement the president’s demands, and more.“We said to ourselves, OK, we’re now in the same position as Columbia,” Weld said. “This is kind of the first shot across the bow.”That same day, Enos and Levitsky published a third op-ed, “Appeasing Trump Damages Harvard and America”, urging the university to resist and take a stand.Enos said he heard from alumni who had begun threatening to withhold donations to the school if Harvard didn’t stand up against Trump.After receiving initial demands from the administration, the Wall Street Journal reported that Harvard leaders were in contact with the administration in pursuit of an agreement. Federal officials reportedly believed that Harvard would eventually concede, as Columbia had. Harvard said that the demands were too vague and requested more details.Harvard’s governing boards met as planned in early April. While no details from those meetings were released, Enos believes their faculty letter was likely discussed, noting that last year he was told that the governing bodies had found a similar letter he organized in support of former Harvard president Claudine Gay to be “very persuasive”.“I would find it shocking if they ignored or at least didn’t consider that kind of outpouring of faculty support,” Enos said.Following the weekend meeting, the Cambridge city council passed a unanimous resolution urging Harvard to reject Trump’s demands, and to “use all measures possible, including the University’s endowment funds, if necessary, to safeguard academic independence, the rule of law, and democracy”.Councilmember Burhan Azeem, who co-sponsored the resolution, said he wanted Harvard to know that they had the support of the city behind them if they chose to stand up to the administration.Azeem said it’s rare for the city council to get involved in internal Harvard affairs, but the stakes were high.“We were trying to convey to Harvard that the city is not the most powerful institution, but we are an institution, we have lawyers and we are willing to take action and we are willing to stand by them,” Azeem said.By this point, despite the Trump administration’s 3 April letter demanding “immediate cooperation”, Harvard had not yet publicly responded.On 11 April, Harvard’s AAUP chapter filed a second lawsuit against the administration, this time challenging the federal review of the university’s federal funding.The next day, hundreds of Harvard affiliates and Cambridge residents rallied in near-freezing temperatures at Cambridge Common, demanding once more that the university resist the federal pressure and also protect its international students and faculty.Unbeknownst to the protesters, behind closed doors that weekend, Harvard leaders were parsing through a new five-page letter from the Trump administration that had been delivered late on Friday.The letter included a list of sweeping demands – the shuttering of all diversity, equity and inclusion programs and initiatives, restrictions on the acceptance of international students who are “hostile to the American values and institutions”, and federal oversight of admissions, hiring and the ideology of students and staff and more.Harvard officials were stunned by the demands in the letter, the Wall Street Journal reported, viewing them as more extreme than those sent to other schools. A Sunday board meeting ended in unanimous agreement on how to respond.Then, on Monday, 14 April, Harvard released its statement publicly rejecting the demands, and released the administration’s Friday letter.“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”, Harvard’s president wrote.“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. 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.”It was then Harvard became the first major US university to openly defy the administration’s demands.Garber’s office did not respond to a request for comment on how the decision came together. But, Enos believes that the pressure from faculty, alumni, students and others mattered.“I think we did manage to put a tremendous amount of pressure on Harvard to do the right thing,” Enos said. “It came from all circles.”Weld said she was “very glad” when she read the announcement, adding that the demands from the Trump administration were “such an egregious overreach”. Accepting them, she said, would have been “disastrous”.Harvard’s announcement drew support from Democrats, as well as Harvard faculty and alumni, and leaders of other universities.View image in fullscreenThe Crimson reported a surge in donations to Harvard after the announcement, with the school receiving an average of 88 online donations per hour. Between Monday, when the announcement was made, and 9am Wednesday, nearly 4,000 gifts totaling $1.14m had been made, according to a giving update from Harvard alumni affairs and development obtained by the Crimson.But the battle has only just begun. The fight this week has already escalated.Following Harvard’s announcement, federal officials froze more than $2bn in grants to the university. Trump also has threatened to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status and its ability to enroll international students.On Thursday, the Trump administration accused Harvard – in yet another letter to Garber – of failing to report large foreign donations to the federal government, as is required by law. They demanded that Harvard provide names of foreign donors, including records of communication with all of them from the beginning of 2020, and records pertaining to foreigners who spent time at Harvard; that latter group includes students Harvard expelled or those who had their credentials canceled, going back to 2016.A Harvard spokesperson told the New York Times on Friday: “Harvard has filed Section 117 reports for decades as part of its ongoing compliance with the law.”Layoffs have already been reported at the Harvard School of Public Health, with warnings at Harvard Medical School, too.Though Harvard’s endowment is sure to offer some financial cushion, the New York Times reports that about 80% of it is limited to specific purposes.“It’s going to get more painful before it gets better,” Enos said.Weld said that the AAUP will continue to proceed with their lawsuits against the administration and that concerns remain regarding Harvard’s decisions earlier this year to “shut down spaces of independent critical inquiry related to Palestine on our campus”.Still, she said it was “vitally important” for the whole higher education sector that Harvard was fighting back.“If Harvard had not stood up and rejected the Trump administration’s demands, it would have sent generational chill through higher education in this country,” she said.“If Harvard, the richest university in human history, cannot stand up and fight back to unquestionably illegal demands, then what other institution is going to feel that it’s safe for them to do so?” More