The head of Harvard University doubled down on his defiance against the Trump administration Wednesday, saying the Ivy League school would not compromise on certain issues despite the federal government’s threat to freeze more than $2 billion in funding.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News' Lester Holt, Harvard President Alan Garber said the school had “no choice” but to fight back against what it believes is federal overreach and an illegal attempt by the government to withhold funding as leverage to control academic decision-making.
“We are defending what I believe is one of the most important lynchpins of the American economy and way of life — our universities,” Garber said.
In a letter on April 11, the Trump administration outlined a list of “critical reforms” it wanted Harvard to make to keep $2.2 billion in grants. The reforms included allowing the government to audit whom the school hires and admits for at least the next three years.
When Harvard rejected the demands, the administration said it would freeze the funding, citing the school’s unwillingness to seriously address antisemitism and the harassment of Jewish students.
Harvard sued the federal government on Monday to halt the funding freeze.
Speaking about the issue for the first time on Wednesday, Garber said the lawsuit was necessary to protect the school’s independence and constitutional rights, as well as the future of higher education in the United States.
“We will not compromise on certain issues,” said Garber, the head of Harvard since 2024. “We’ve made that very clear.”
Garber acknowledged that the Massachusetts campus has a “real problem” with antisemitism amid a war between Israel and Hamas that began after the group attacked Israel in October 2023.
In its lawsuit, Harvard outlined steps it has taken to curb incidents of antisemitism, including imposing "meaningful discipline" for policy violators, beefing up security, enhancing programs meant to address bias and hiring staff to support those programs.
Garber, who is Jewish, said the antisemitism issue has nothing to do with the research that the federal grants fund.
The research now at risk includes efforts to improve the prospects of children who survive cancer, to understand at the molecular level how cancer spreads throughout the body, to predict the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield, he said.
“Putting that research at jeopardy because of claims of antisemitism seems to us to be misguided,” Garber said. “The effort to address antisemitism will not be advanced by shutting off funding.”
He added that nearly all federal funding is directed toward the research the government has deemed high-priority.
Even if there is a short pause in funding, Garber said there are long-lasting consequences to the research. In some cases, he said it would be impossible to pick the projects back up.
“There is so much at stake,” he said. “People leave their jobs. We have patients whose treatment in clinical trials might be interrupted. Animals that are used in research sometimes cannot continue to be maintained when the funding stops.”
Garber said he is “very concerned about Harvard’s future” and the partnership between the federal government and research universities that he said has improved lives and has made the U.S. a “technological powerhouse.”
“That partnership has been responsible over the decades for dramatic innovation in science and technology,” he said.
The White House on Wednesday defended its position and actions.
"The real threat to higher education comes when places like Harvard let their students’ civil rights get trampled in a spineless attempt to coddle pro-Hamas activists,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement. “President Trump is standing up for every student denied an education or safe campus because left-wing universities fail to protect their civil rights. Colleges are hooked on federal cash, and Mr. Garber’s public outburst only fuels the push to shut off the taxpayer money propping up their institution.”
In a statement announcing the freeze on April 14, the government said Harvard was reinforcing the “troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges — that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws.”
“The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable. The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable,” the statement added. “It is time for elite universities to take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support.”
In a Truth Social post a day later, President Donald Trump took it a step further and suggested Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status.
Harvard’s defiance has been widely applauded on campus and beyond.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has paused billions of dollars in federal grants to other prestigious universities, including Columbia and Princeton. More than 150 university and college presidents co-signed a letter Tuesday condemning the Trump administration’s efforts to get the institutions to change their admissions processes and penalize student protesters.
Garber said Harvard was prepared for a long battle with the Trump administration.
When asked whether it was a fight he could win, Garber said he did not know the answer.
But, he said, “the stakes are so high that we have no choice.”
