The federal government announced a freeze on more than$ 2.2 billion in grants and$ 60 million in contracts on Monday, bringing the conflict between Harvard University and the Trump administration to an end.
The Trump administration wrote a letter to Harvard on Friday, calling for extensive government and management changes, a condition that Harvard university what it calls “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies, as well as do an audit of the study body, faculty, and leadership on their views regarding diversity.
On Monday, Harvard responded to the “demands,” saying it would not agree. In consequence, the federal government will freeze the more than$ 2.2 billion in deals and offers.
The demands from the Trump administration to the school, which are updates from an earlier text, even call for a moratorium on face masks, which appeared to be targeted by pro-Palestinian activists. Additionally, they want the university to stop funding or recognizing “any student organization or club that supports or encourages criminal activity, improper violence, or improper harassment.”
In a text to the Harvard group on Monday, Harvard President Alan Garber claimed that the requirements “exceed the legal limits of the president’s jurisdiction under Title VI,” which prohibits discrimination against students based on their race, color, or national origin.
According to Garber,” no government may determine what secret universities can tell, whom they can say and hire, and what fields of study and inquiry they may pursue,” regardless of which party is in power.
These goals won’t be achieved by claims of power that are boundless from the law to impose how Harvard’s teaching and learning are conducted, he wrote. We must define and carry out our responsibility as a community in terms of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our obligations, and embodied our values.
