President Donald Trump has boasted that Harvard University is on the brink of capitulating to a deal with the administration after months of government attacks and moves to pull funding from the storied institution. But according to The New York Times, recent email communications show the talks are going nowhere.
A huge sticking point, according to reporter Michael Schmidt, is that the administration wants to shake down Harvard for $200 million, which university officials consider to be out of the question.
Furthermore, according to the report, Harvard was well on its way to agreeing to a deal in August, but things fell apart after Trump strategist Stephen Miller took a more active involvement in the proceedings.
A message on Saturday, "from Linda McMahon, President Trump’s education secretary, conveyed an understanding of an emerging deal between Harvard and the White House that flew in the face of the terms the university had been insisting on," wrote Schmidt. Harvard President Alan Garber "felt he had made clear in recent negotiations that the university would not agree to pay the federal government to settle a monthslong battle with the Trump administration over antisemitism on campus and other matters." However, McMahon's message "thanked Dr. Garber for what she portrayed as his commitment to sending $200 million to the government as part of a deal."
The president has previously suggested Harvard will agree to invest $500 million in a giant nationwide network of AI-focused trade schools. Administration negotiators, however, want $200 million of that to be a civil fine to the government, which Harvard rejects.
When Garber pointed out Harvard hadn't agreed to the $200 million payment, per the report, Trump administration officials responded with a set of new terms that would give them greater oversight over Harvard and erode the university's academic independence, alarming school officials and causing further divides on how to get the deal resolved.
"Harvard officials, already anxious about the prospect of backlash to any settlement with a president many on campus see as autocratic, are sensitive to the details of any agreement. For months, they have viewed an accord between Brown University and the Trump administration as a model," said the report. "Under that agreement, Brown agreed to spend $50 million on state workforce development programs over a decade. The university did not have to enter into a rigorous monitoring agreement, and it secured a provision that Brown leaders viewed as safeguarding academic independence."
Trump kicked off his new term in office by demanding several legal agreements with groups that have opposed him in the past, including several law firms that agreed to spend millions of dollars on Trump-approved legal causes. A report in August revealed many of these law firms are now simply ignoring some provisions of the agreements.