Harvard University is willing to meet the Trump administration’s demand to shell out up to $500 million to resolve its ongoing dispute, a sum more than twice as much as Columbia University paid last week, The New York Times reported Monday.
Columbia agreed to pay $221 million to resolve its dispute with the Trump administration, with $200 million paid to the Treasury until the White House decides how to spend it, according to the report.
Harvard, however, is balking at paying hundreds of millions directly to the federal government, according to the report. Talks are ongoing between the Trump administration and the Ivy League school.
President Donald Trump has demanded that Harvard pay more than Columbia over on-campus antisemitism that he has assailed the university for allowing to persist for more than a year-and-half, its failure to protect Jewish students, and its ongoing diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“The Trump administration’s proposition is simple and commonsense: Don’t allow antisemitism and DEI to run your campus, don’t break the law, and protect the civil liberties of all students,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement last week.
Among the earliest actions the administration took against Harvard was the cancellation of hundreds of grants awarded to researchers on the grounds that the school failed to do enough to address harassment of Jewish students on its campus.
The Trump administration has since sought to bar international students from attending the school; threatened Harvard’s accreditation status; and opened the door to cutting off more funds by finding it violated federal civil rights law.
Harvard’s thinking, according to the Times, is to reach a deal with the Trump administration to avoid more setbacks for the remainder of his term.
Fields told the Times on Monday that the White House was “confident that Harvard will eventually come around and support the president’s vision, and through good-faith conversations and negotiations, a good deal is more than possible.”
The Trump administration lifted up its resolution with Columbia as a template to be used with Harvard and other universities it has targeted over similar violations of federal law.
“They didn’t admit wrongdoing — it’s a classic settlement,” Donna E. Shalala, who led four schools, including the University of Miami, told the Times last week. “You don’t admit wrongdoing, and you preserve your right to continue as an institution.”
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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