With Republicans in Control, Alan Garber Faces a Fight For Harvard’s Funding

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 has spent the last year investing in relationships with politicians in Washington, avoiding direct confrontation with the threats he has long acknowledged.

Now faced with a barrage of funding cuts, Garber may find himself pushed into a fight.

Since assuming the Oval Office Jan. 20, Trump has signed more than 20 executive orders — gutting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, ramping up scrutiny on international students involved in pro-Palestine protests, and demanding federal agencies to investigate potential civil rights violations at universities with endowments exceeding $1 billion.

The flurry of directives — with potentially severe consequences for Harvard research initiatives — represent a major test for Garber, who has previously told faculty members that he hopes to build a more diplomatic, cooperative relationship with Trump.

Garber addressed a now-rescinded order to freeze all federal funding on Tuesday, telling affiliates to comply with orders to stop work and promising to uphold University “values and commitments.”

The statement was Garber’s most explicit response to the Trump administration yet. But it stopped short of forcefulness, neither directly condemning Trump’s orders nor vowing to resist them.

Before Tuesday, Garber had not publicly commented on the effects of a Trump administration, only privately expressing concern over endowment tax hikes.

“This one goes to the heart of their whole financial wellbeing and to their status and position in the world as a research institution,” said Stanley M. Brand, former general counsel to the House of Representatives. “I don’t see how they can let this one go.”

But Trump’s Monday directive to pause all federal funding was enough for Garber to break his silence.

“In these challenging times, our efforts will be guided by our values and commitments: supporting academic excellence and the pursuit of knowledge,” Garber wrote on Tuesday.

The funding threats, which were reignited by Harvard’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and inflamed again by former University President Claudine Gay’s testimony before Congress, have been building in the last year, gaining bipartisan support and evidence collected by subpoena.

Garber, in turn, has made several trips to Washington, met with his most outspoken critics, and earlier this month, hired a lobbying firm stacked with former Trump administration officials and allies.

But without control of the executive branch, Republicans in Congress have been limited to sending strongly worded letters and publishing damaging reports with subpoenaed documents. They had been previously unable to pass legislation through the Senate or use executive orders, which do not require Congressional approval, to punish Harvard.

Now, Republicans have everything they had asked for — a friend in the White House, control over both chambers of Congress, and a public mandate to punish elite universities.

“I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” Trump threatened.

While some of Trump’s orders have already been challenged in court, the proposals alone are a clear signal that Trump and Republicans are willing to follow through on plans to pressure colleges and universities.

Donald F. Kettl, the former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, said Trump’s approach is primarily about messaging.

Kettl said Trump’s administration is “spoiling for a fight, not only to defund these efforts but also to establish the president’s power to make such decisions.”

“They want to fight this battle, and they think they’re going to win it,” he added.

Harvard Kennedy School professor John P. Holdren — a former senior science advisor to President Barack Obama — also warned that future orders from Trump will likely be more pointed and targeted at Harvard.

“They understood belatedly that the original memorandum was too broad and too vague, so they will get narrower and more specific in some of these memorandum going forward,” he said.

Garber may soon have to follow in the footsteps of former Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow, who successfully challenged the Trump administration in court over a Covid-era immigration policy for international students enrolled in virtual classes.

But even as Republicans’ threat to cut Harvard’s federal funding finally materializes, Garber has been mild in his response — both compared to other university administrators and his own predecessors.

Former Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust called Trump’s election “divisive and contentious” in 2016 and Bacow said the immigration order’s “ cruelty” was “surpassed only by its recklessness.”

Garber’s decision to not directly condemn Trump’s recent orders is a sign that Harvard is celebrating that it has begun to leave the limelight and that federal attention is being directed to other universities like Columbia.

But Garber’s hope to keep Harvard away from the headlines may be only a pipe dream.

“If one wants to get in the news and does not care about fairness, one targets famous people and things,” wrote Emory University law professor Matthew B. Lawrence in a statement.

“That has happened to Harvard before and I worry it will happen again now with funding threats and related scrutiny coming from the executive branch,” he added.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.