Updated on April 19, 2025 at 1:02 am
The White House did not intend to Send one’s hand Revised – and more aggressive – requests to Harvard on April 11, according to a report from the New York Times published on Friday evening.
The requests – which were considered excessive and illegal to the administrators of Harvard – should not have been sent and “unauthorized”, according to the Times, which cited two anonymous sources.
THE Letter of April 11 was signed by Josh Gruenbaum, Commissioner of the General Services Administration, Sean R. Kevney, Acting Advocate General of the United States Health and Social Services Department, and Thomas E. Wheeler, Acting General Councilor of the United States Department of Education.
A Harvard spokesperson criticized the government’s response as “breathtaking” in a statement to Crimson.
“Even if the letter was a mistake, the actions that the government has taken this week have real consequences,” the spokesman wrote, adding that the letter was signed by a senior official and has borne all the characteristics of an official government document.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a comment request.
According to Times, Harvard lawyers had sought details on the first set of requests from the Trump administration, which were sent on April 3, believing that it was possible to avoid the public deadlock which followed later.
The first letter – two pages of length – demanded that Harvard Ban mask during demonstrations, eliminates diversity, equity and inclusion programming, and agrees to comply with the Department of Internal Security, but carried few details on what the White House wanted the University to change.
The Friday letter was supposed to clarify the initial list, but rather presented a range of much more aggressive requests which included pro-Palestine decomposition groups, submitting to three years of federal audits and agreeing to report to international students who broke university policies to federal agencies.
Shortly after Harvard president Alan Mr. Garber ’76 announced that the university would challenge the White House requests on Monday, Gruenbaum called one of Harvard’s lawyers to say that he and Wheeler had not authorized the release of the letter.
But in the same call, while Gruenbaum said that the letter had been ready to send, it was not intended to be delivered last Friday when conversations between the Trump administration and Harvard were still in progress, according to Times.
A senior White House official defended the requests that the administration published last Friday and his aggressive response in the direct consequences of the letter in a declaration to the Times, saying that Harvard had not “won the telephone” and engage with members of the federal working group on anti -Semitism after the Call of Gruenbaum.
“Instead, Harvard participated in a victimization campaign,” said the official.
On Monday evening, senior administrators and the Harvard Corporation, the largest director of the university, were informed of the alleged error in sending the letter – many of which left that the revised aggressive ensemble of the Trump administration was indeed sent wrong, according to Times.
But at that time, the impasse between the Trump and Harvard administration had progressed too far – Garber had taken a stand and the White House had Cut $ 2.2 billion in federal subsidies and contracts.
Clarification: April 19, 2025
A previous version of this article implied that Harvard officials had negotiated with the White House before April 11. In fact, according to the New York Times, they were in contact.
– The writer of staff Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on x @dhruvtkpatel.
– the staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at Grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow it on x @graceunkyoon.
