Harvard Accused by Trump Administration of Financial Instability
The Trump administration accused Harvard University of refusing to comply with a civil rights investigation and alleged that the nation’s richest college is falling into a position of financial instability, according to two separate letters from the Education Department.
The administration on Friday demanded a tranche of admissions documents and threatened to withhold federal funding if the university refused. The government is also requiring a guarantee of about $36 million to allay concerns over Harvard’s “financial responsibility.”
The letters redouble the administration’s pressure campaign on Harvard as talks to restore more than $2 billion in frozen federal research funding have reportedly stalled in recent weeks. A federal judge ruled the funding halt illegal two weeks ago.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights sent a letter accusing Harvard of failing to comply with government requests for documents as part of a civil rights review opened in May over alleged racial discrimination in admissions. Harvard has 20 days to produce documents or face “enforcement action,” which could lead to the loss of access to federal financial aid.
The OCR letter said that Harvard’s initial 489-page response to requests for admissions information was “deficient or wholly unresponsive,” and that when asked for additional documents by July 31, Harvard was “only partially responsive” and did “not indicate any intention to provide further information.”
“The Department has both the right and responsibility to verify Harvard’s compliance with federal civil rights laws. For all their claims, they refuse to provide evidence necessary for the Department to make that determination,” US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement Friday. “What are they hiding?”
Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also on Friday, the Education Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid placed Harvard on “Heightened Cash Monitoring,” which allows the government additional oversight of an institution’s cash management and federal compliance. Harvard is the wealthiest US university, with an endowment of $53 billion.
FSA officials wrote in a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber that threats to halt federal funding over alleged civil rights violations — including the one sent that same morning — could have “a significant adverse effect on the financial condition of the institution.” The letter also cited increased university debt and bond sales, as well as program cuts and layoffs, as evidence of shaky institutional finances.
Harvard currently faces more than $2 billion in frozen federal research funding after allegations it didn’t adequately move to curb antisemitism on campus. In a ruling earlier this month, US District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled that the Trump administration “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities, and did so in a way that runs afoul” of the law.
The administration has promised to appeal the decision.
This isn’t the first time the government contemplated a financial guarantee for Harvard. Earlier this year, federal officials considered an unprecedented tactic to force compliance: placing a lien on school property. The proposal, which was included in a memo revealed in court filings, didn’t appear in public demand letters to Harvard.
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