Trump administration threatens to pull funding from Harvard: Read text

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The Trump administration’s dispute with Harvard University began on April 11, when representatives from multiple federal agencies sent the university a letter accusing it of violating federal civil rights law with its diversity, equity and inclusion programming and for not doing enough to combat antisemitism in student protests around the Israel-Hamas war.

The administration subsequently froze more than $2.2 billion in grants, called for the Internal Revenue Service to remove the university’s tax-exempt status and threatened to revoke its ability to accept and host international students. The university filed a lawsuit on April 21 to block those measures.

In a letter addressed to the Harvard community, Garber, the university’s president, accused the Trump administration of violating its First Amendment rights and said the demands of the administration exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

You can read the full text of the April 11 Trump administration letter to Harvard below.

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‘Failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment’

Dear Dr. Garber:

The United States has invested in Harvard University’s operations because of the value to thecountry of scholarly discovery and academic excellence. But an investment is not an entitlement. Itdepends on Harvard upholding federal civil rights laws, and it only makes sense if Harvard fostersthe kind of environment that produces intellectual creativity and scholarly rigor, both of which areantithetical to ideological capture.

Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions thatjustify federal investment. But we appreciate your expression of commitment to repairing thosefailures and welcome your collaboration in restoring the University to its promise. We thereforepresent the below provisions as the basis for an agreement in principle that will maintain Harvard’sfinancial relationship with the federal government.

If acceptable to Harvard, this document will constitute an agreement in principle, which the partieswill work in good faith to translate into a more thorough, binding settlement agreement. As you willsee, this letter incorporates and supersedes the terms of the federal government’s prior letter of April3, 2025.

  • Governance and leadership reforms. By August 2025, Harvard must make meaningful governance reform and restructuring to make possible major change consistent with this letter, including: fostering clear lines of authority and accountability; empowering tenured professors and senior leadership, and, from among the tenured professoriate and senior leadership, exclusively those most devoted to the scholarly mission of the University and committed to the changes indicated in this letter; reducing the power held by students and untenured faculty; reducing the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship; and reducing forms of governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization that interfere with the possibility of the reforms indicated in this letter.
  • Merit-Based Hiring Reform. By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies, and cease all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related practices among faculty, staff, and leadership. Such adoption and implementation must be durable and demonstrated through structural and personnel changes. All existing and prospective faculty shall be reviewed for plagiarism and Harvard’s plagiarism policy consistently enforced. All hiring and related data shall be shared with the federal government and subjected to a comprehensive audit by the federal government during the period in which reforms are being implemented, which shall be at least until the end of 2028.
  • Merit-Based Admissions Reform. By August 2025, the University must adopt and implement merit-based admissions policies and cease all preferences based on race, color, national origin, or proxies thereof, throughout its undergraduate program, each graduate program individually, each of its professional schools, and other programs. Such adoption and implementation must be durable and demonstrated through structural and personnel changes. All admissions data shall be shared with the federal government and subjected to a comprehensive audit by the federal government—and non-individualized, statistical information regarding admissions shall be made available to the public, including information about rejected and admitted students broken down by race, color, national origin, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests—during the period in which reforms are being implemented, which shall be at least until the end of 2028. During this same period, the dean of admissions for each program or school must sign a public statement after each admissions cycle certifying that these rules have been upheld.
  • International Admissions Reform. By August 2025, the University must reform its recruitment, screening, and admissions of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism. Harvard will immediately report to federal authorities, including the Department of Homeland Security and State Department, any foreign student, including those on visas and with green cards, who commits a conduct violation. As above, these reforms must be durable and demonstrated through structural and personnel changes; comprehensive throughout all of Harvard’s programs; and, during the reform period, shared with the federal government for audit, shared on a non-individualized basis with the public, and certified by deans of admissions.
  • Viewpoint Diversity in Admissions and Hiring. By August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse. This audit shall begin no later than the summer of 2025 and shall proceed on a department-by-department, field-by-field, or teaching-unit-by-teaching-unit basis as appropriate. The report of the external party shall be submitted to University leadership and the federal government no later than the end of 2025. Harvard must abolish all criteria, preferences, and practices, whether mandatory or optional, throughout its admissions and hiring practices, that function as ideological litmus tests. Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity. If the review finds that the existing faculty in the relevant department or field are not capable of hiring for viewpoint diversity, or that the relevant teaching unit is not capable of admitting a critical mass of students with diverse viewpoints, hiring or admissions within that department, field, or teaching unit shall be transferred to the closest cognate department, field, or teaching unit that is capable of achieving viewpoint diversity. This audit shall be performed and the same steps taken to establish viewpoint diversity every year during the period in which reforms are being implemented, which shall be at least until the end of 2028.
  • Reforming Programs with Egregious Records of Antisemitism or Other Bias. By August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit those programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture:
    • The programs, schools, and centers of concern include but are not limited to the Divinity School, Graduate School of Education, School of Public Health, Medical School, Religion and Public Life Program, FXB Center for Health & Human Rights, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and theHarvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic.
    • The report of the external party shall include information as to individual faculty members who discriminated against Jewish or Israeli students or incited students to violate Harvard’s rules following October 7, and the University and federal government will cooperate to determine appropriate sanctions for those faculty members within the bounds of academic freedom and the First Amendment.
    • The report of the external party shall be submitted to University leadership and the federal government no later than the end of 2025 and reforms undertaken to repair the problems. This audit shall be performed and the same steps taken to make repairs every year during the period in which reforms are being implemented, which shall be at least until the end of 2028.
  • Discontinuation of DEI. The University must immediately shutter all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, offices, committees, positions, and initiatives, under whatever name, and stop all DEI-based policies, including DEI-based disciplinary or speech control policies, under whatever name; demonstrate that it has done so to the satisfaction of the federal government; and demonstrate to the satisfaction of the federal government that these reforms are durable and effective through structural and personnel changes. By August 2025, the University must submit to the government a report—certified for accuracy—that confirms these reforms.

  • Student Discipline Reform and Accountability. Harvard must immediately reform its student discipline policies and procedures so as to swiftly and transparently enforce its existing disciplinary policies with consistency and impartiality, and without double standards based on identity or ideology. Where those policies are insufficient to prevent the disruption of scholarship, classroom learning and teaching, or other aspects of normal campus life, Harvard must develop and implement disciplinary policies sufficient to prevent those disruptions. This includes but is not limited to the following:

    • Discipline at Harvard must include immediate intervention and stoppage of disruptions or deplatforming, including by the Harvard police when necessary to stop a disruption or deplatforming; robust enforcement and reinstatement of existing time, place, and manner rules on campus, including ordering the Harvard police to stop incidents that violate time, place, and manner rules when necessary; a disciplinary process housed in one body that is accountable to Harvard’s president or other capstone official; and removing or reforming institutional bodies and practices that delay and obstruct enforcement, including the relevant Administrative Boards and FAS Faculty Council.

    • Harvard must adopt a new policy on student groups or clubs that forbids the recognition and funding of, or provision of accommodations to, any student group or club that endorses or promotes criminal activity, illegal violence, or illegal harassment; invites non-students onto campus who regularly violate campus rules; or acts as a front for a student club that has been banned from campus. The leaders or organizers of recognized and unrecognized student groups that violate these policies must be held accountable as a matter of student discipline and made ineligible to serve as officers in other recognized student organizations. In the future, funding decisions for student groups or clubs must be made exclusively by a body of University faculty accountable to senior University leadership. In particular, Harvard must end support and recognition of those student groups or clubs that engaged in anti-Semitic activity since October 7th, 2023, including the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee, Harvard Graduates Students 4 Palestine, Law Students 4 Palestine, Students for Justice in Palestine, and the National Lawyers Guild, and discipline and render ineligible the officers and active members of those student organizations.

    • Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension.

    • Harvard must investigate and carry out meaningful discipline for all violations that occurred during the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 academic years, including the Harvard Business School protest of October 2023, the University Hall sit-in of November 2023, and the spring encampment of 2024. This must include permanently expelling the students involved in the October 18 assault of an Israeli Harvard Business School student, and suspending students involved in occupying university buildings, as warranted by the facts of individual cases.

    • The Harvard president and police chief must publicly clarify that the HarvardUniversity Police Department will enforce University rules and the law. Harvard must also commit to cooperating in good faith with law enforcement.

  • Whistleblower Reporting and Protections. The University must immediately establish procedures by which any Harvard affiliate can report noncompliance with the reforms detailed in this letter to both university leadership and the federal government. Any such reporter shall be fully protected from any adverse actions for so reporting.

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  • Transparency and Monitoring. The University shall make organizational changes to ensure full transparency and cooperation with all federal regulators. No later than June 30, 2025, and every quarter thereafter during the period in which reforms are being implemented, which shall be at least until the end of 2028, the University shall submit to the federal government a report—certified for accuracy—that documents its progress on the implementation of the reforms detailed in this letter. The University must also, to the satisfaction of the federal government, disclose the source and purpose of all foreign funds; cooperate with the federal government in a forensic audit of foreign funding sources and uses, including how that money was used by Harvard, its agents, and, to the extent available, third parties acting on Harvard’s campus; report all requested immigration and related information to the United States Department of Homeland Security; and comply with all requirements relating to the SEVIS system.

We expect your immediate cooperation in implementing these critical reforms that will enableHarvard to return to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence

Sincerely,

Josh Gruenbaum, Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, General Services Administration

Sean R. Keveny, Acting General Counsel, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

Thomas E. Wheeler, Acting General Counsel, U.S. Department of Education

Contact Kayla Jimenez at [email protected]. Follow her on X at @kaylajjimenez.

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