Harvard pushes back on claim that Trump team mistakenly sent demand letter
JONATHAN EDWARDS AND SUSAN SVRLUGA
APRIL 19 AT 5:01 PM
Harvard University on Saturday challenged anonymous Trump administration officials who said a mistake had sparked the escalating confrontation between a U.S. president and one of the country’s most prestigious colleges.
On Friday, the New York Times reported that two Trump administration sources said an April 11 letter signed by three federal officials to Harvard President Alan Garber was “unauthorized” and should not have been sent. The letter demanded the Massachusetts university come under government oversight and make changes related to student and faculty conduct, admissions, alleged antisemitism on campus and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Harvard on Saturday pushed back on the assertion that the letter was sent in error, pointing out that the Trump administration had “doubled down” on its threats. After Harvard refused to comply with the letter’s demands, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal funding to the university and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.
“It remains unclear to us exactly what, among the government’s recent words and deeds, were mistakes or what the government actually meant to do and say,” the university said Saturday in a statement to The Washington Post. “But even if the letter was a mistake, the actions the government took this week have real-life consequences on students, patients, employees, and the standing of American higher education in the world.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment, but a senior official there told the Times that the administration stood by the letter. White House senior policy strategist May Mailman said the turmoil over Harvard publicly rejecting the administration’s demands was overblown, and she faulted university leaders for not continuing discussions they had been having for weeks with the White House’s antisemitism task force.
“It was malpractice on the side of Harvard’s lawyers not to pick up the phone and call the members of the antisemitism task force who they had been talking to for weeks,” Mailman said, according to the Times. “Instead, Harvard went on a victimhood campaign.”
The April 11 letter was a significant escalation of President Donald Trump’s clashes with Ivy League institutions and other nonprofit groups that his administration views as “woke,” according to three people who spoke with The Post on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the topic. Trump officials across the government have used their power to hand out harsh penalties, such as the growing number of student visa revocations and the president’s application of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport immigrants.
The letter* from the antisemitism task force was sent by Sean Keveney, the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services and a member of the task force, according to three people briefed on the matter who spoke with the Times. It was signed by Keveney, General Services Administration official Josh Gruenbaum and the Education Department’s acting general counsel, Thomas Wheeler. It was sent on the letterhead of those three agencies.
Trump officials have in the past accused Harvard of violating students’ civil rights and its leaders of breaching Title VI, the federal law that bars federal funding to any school found to violate civil rights. The university was failing to keep Jewish and pro-Israel students safe by allowing antisemitism on campus, officials have said.
On Monday, Harvard rejected the administration’s demands that the university submit to extensive government oversight while overhauling its governance, admissions and hiring practices, calling the orders illegal and unconstitutional.
“They include requirements to ‘audit’ the viewpoints of our student body, faculty, staff, and to ‘reduc[e] the power’ of certain students, faculty, and administrators targeted because of their ideological views,” Garber wrote in an open letter published Monday.
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” the Harvard president added.
Trump officials retaliated that night by freezing $2.2 billion in funding and, according to the university, issued stop-work orders on federal contracts while launching investigations into Harvard’s operations. They then escalated their fight by asking the Internal Revenue Service’s top attorney to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status, which is available to educational, charitable and religious organizations, as well as social welfare groups. Although tax-exempt organizations are forbidden from engaging in certain political activity, experts said there’s no proof Harvard violated that restriction.
On Saturday, Harvard said the Trump administration’s behavior in the week since it sent the letter is more evidence of its intent.
“Even assuming the Administration now wishes to take back its litany of breathtakingly intrusive demands,” the university said in its statement, “it appears to have doubled down on those demands through its deeds in recent days.
“Actions speak louder than words.”
Jacob Bogage, Jeff Stein, Ben Brasch and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel contributed to this report.
*see:
https://www.harvard.edu/research-fundin ... -04-11.pdf 
