Updated April 01, 2025 at 17:45 PM ET
Across Harvard鈥檚 campus, some students and faculty members expressed frustration and fears about the Trump administration鈥檚 in federal grants and contracts sent to the university.
On Monday, the government鈥檚 joint task force to combat antisemitism said it had placed Harvard and its roughly $9 billion in funds over what the feds claim are practices of discrimination against Jewish members of the school community.
While many students kept to business as usual on Harvard Yard on Tuesday, some people, particularly professors, focused on research expressed anxiety over the government鈥檚 review.
Nikolas Bowie, a Harvard law professor, said in a phone interview if the Trump administration follows through on the cuts, it would violate the university鈥檚 legal rights.
鈥淭hey are illegal attempts by an authoritarian regime to usurp congressional authority and coerce universities into doing his personal bidding,鈥� he said.
Bowie was one of the hundreds of faculty members who wrote a letter to Harvard leaders urging them to resist demands from the Trump administration.
The letter was issued in anticipation that Harvard, like , would be targeted by the task force. At Columbia, administrators bowed to several 鈥減reconditions,鈥� including changes to security and its Middle Eastern studies department, to negotiate the retrieval of stripped from the school after the feds鈥� lobbed similar accusations of antisemitism.
Harvard鈥檚 president, Alan Garber, foreshadowed that the school will work with the task force to potentially change rules and acknowledged in a Tuesday the importance of fighting antisemitic incidents on campus. He noted the university has already undergone several changes over the past year to do so.
Garber also stressed that cutting off funds would devastate university research and exploration of potentially 鈥渓ife-saving鈥� innovations.
Like many other U.S. universities, pro-Palestinian protests in response to the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza put Harvard under scrutiny and prompted fierce political and public debate over how schools respond to demonstrations and crises.
Brian Bixby, a Harvard alum, was on campus Tuesday to do historical research about the Siege of Boston for the Aaron Burr Association. He said in an interview that he hoped the universities placed under review by the feds would 鈥渂and together,鈥� to 鈥渕ake it clear that they will not curtail free speech on campus鈥� and potentially take legal action against the Trump administration.
鈥淚 am concerned that in an effort to say that we are combatting antisemitism that they may also be trying to curtail free speech,鈥� he said, 鈥渟ince essentially advocacy for the Palestinian cause is considered by some to be the same as advocating for a terrorist organization 鈥� and that seems far too simple an identification for me.鈥�
A spokesperson for Harvard Hillel declined to comment on the government鈥檚 actions.
Dozens of students gathered in front of the university鈥檚 science center Tuesday afternoon to protest the feds鈥� research funding threats and Harvard鈥檚 decision days earlier to dismiss faculty leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies, among other issues.
The demonstrators also rallied to show their support for Palestinians, and decried the recent detainment by federal immigration officials of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa 脰zt眉rk.
As the rally kicked off, a few pro-Israel counterprotesters played the American national anthem out of a blaring loudspeaker. The broader crowd appeared to ignore them and soon after started marching around Harvard Yard, which was closed off by university security to members of the public.
Earlier in the day, Sean Eddy, a Harvard professor and researcher who focuses on biology and applied mathematics, echoed criticisms of the federal government鈥檚 apparent efforts to defund research.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 clear that the massive expansion in U.S. federal funding of science after World War II, especially at the NIH [National Institutes of Health], is a large part of what鈥檚 driven U.S. innovation and scientific excellence for the last 80 years, and made U.S. research universities the best in the world,鈥� he said in an email.
鈥淚t looks like we are starting to tear a lot of that down now,鈥� he added, 鈥渨hich seems like a historic unforced error to me.鈥�
Anna Rubenstein contributed reporting for WBUR
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