Columbia tried to negotiate with the Trump administration. Here's what Harvard can learn from its efforts.

Boston Globe

2 days ago

What did Columbia get in return? So far, not much. Though Trump's tone on Columbia has brightened, his administration still hit the school with a civil rights violation and threatened its accreditation. The canceled funding has not been restored.
'I see [Columbia] as conceding and for nothing; I see it as neglecting its values and opening the door for the administration to do the same to other institutions,' said Antoinette Flores, director of higher education accountability and quality at New America, a liberal-leaning
Washington think tank.
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Columbia's leadership has argued many policy shifts were reasonable responses to campus protests — particularly around the war in Gaza — that made Jewish and Muslim students deeply uncomfortable.
Columbia's president, Claire Shipman, issued a statement June 23 acknowledging the university was 'facing the decimation of decades of research' because of Trump's cuts. She also insisted it hadn't capitulated to Trump.
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'Following the law and attempting to resolve a complaint is not capitulation. That narrative is incorrect,' Shipman said.
A Columbia spokesperson did not address whether the school received any of the retracted $400 million, instead referring to Shipman's June statement.
But researchers there said their work has become increasingly challenging, with no sign of when, or if, the funding will come back.
Joshua Gordon, chair of Columbia's psychiatry program, said his department lost roughly $25 million and hasn't received renewals for existing grants or money for projects they've expensed.
'We are continuously told by the administration of Columbia University that negotiations with the federal government continue but other than that, we haven't been given any details,' Gordon said.
Katherine Keyes, a Columbia professor of epidemiology, said her department scrambled to place researchers no longer appointed at Columbia elsewhere and cobble together stabilization funds to retain existing staff. Funds for her research on how environmental factors affect young people's mental health were terminated in March, not for cause or misconduct but 'because of allegations against the institution' — a fact she called a 'difficult pill to swallow.'
Harvard's and Columbia's difficulties in making deals with the federal government come as other schools implement dramatic changes to avoid Trump's wrath. The University of Virginia president last month resigned after the Justice Department demanded his departure to end an investigation into the school's diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The University of Pennsylvania this past week agreed to ban transgender women from participating in women's sports and to strip Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer, of her records and titles.
For Harvard, the costs of the standoff grow by the day: Trump has announced cuts at Harvard that dwarf Columbia's. Though Harvard won some early court victories, the federal government retains many points of leverage to make university administrators' lives more miserable.
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Also at risk is the public approval Harvard gained for fighting Trump, support
by demonstrating the opposition to Trump.
'It's hard to imagine a successful negotiation for Harvard because both sides have to appear to win — the administration in Washington wants to be able to declare victory, and so does Harvard,' said Larry Ladd, a former Harvard budget chief.
In many ways, Columbia's and Harvard's stories are similar: Both campuses were for
two years roiled by student protests over the war in Gaza. Both faced investigations over allegedly allowing unchecked harassment of Jewish and Israeli students. And both underwent leadership changes: Columbia's and Harvard's presidents in place at the beginning of the turbulent 2023-24 school year both departed before students returned last fall.
After the federal government said it would withdraw roughly $400 million promised to Columbia, the school made changes
in March, such as banning masks used to hide protesters' identities and appointing a new administrator to oversee departments studying the Middle East.
Those did not appear to stop the onslaught. The National Institutes of Health in April directed officials, without notice, to stop issuing grants to schools including Columbia. In May, Columbia announced it would lay off nearly 180 staff members with federally funded salaries.
Then, the
Health and Human Services Department in May found Columbia violated civil rights law by 'showing deliberate indifference' to hostility toward Jewish students. In June, the Department of Education recommended challenging Columbia's accreditation — jeopardizing even more federal resources.
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Officials with Columbia and the Trump administration acknowledged talks are ongoing.
Still, Education Secretary Linda McMahon told The Wall Street Journal Columbia has 'made such good progress' and the sides 'possibly are getting close to a negotiated resolution.'
Trump in May said Columbia was out of the 'hot seat,' adding it was 'very anti-Semitic and lots of other things but they're working with us on finding a solution.' Harvard, by comparison, 'wants to fight, they want to show how smart they are, and they're getting their ass kicked,' he said.
Harvard, meanwhile, earlier this spring was in talks with Trump officials about how to restore funding. But after officials sent the school their demands in April, president Alan Garber said Harvard wouldn't allow the government to dictate its decisions, a move celebrated by academics and Trump critics nationwide.
Harvard has since waged several court battles against the administration, which
took aim at Harvard's international students and nearly all
its federal research funding. Late last month, the administration
Political observers said Harvard, as it re-enters negotiations, has more advantages than Columbia: It benefits from a larger endowment and recognizable brand. Trump officials are eager to work toward a deal there, seeing it as the strongest place to influence higher education.
But in some ways, Harvard, along with other higher education leaders, may have more to lose if Garber gives in.
'Because we put so much faith in their leadership, because of the size of their endowment, because it's the oldest university in the country, because it's
Harvard,
it really opens the floodgates for the Trump administration to have massive incursions into the operations of higher education," said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors.
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The sweeping nature of the government's approach — and uncertainty about what will be enough — complicates negotiations. Attacks have come from all corners, from the Health and Human Services to Homeland Security departments.
'You can't negotiate with a party that is inconsistent and unreliable, and that appears to be the difficulty Columbia had,' said Ladd, now with the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.
Harvard and Columbia are 'in a precarious position, but they have both opened lines of communication and can credibly claim they have taken some significant action,' said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute in D.C.
The question, he said, is 'will that be enough that they can reach common ground with the administration and, if they do, can they spin it back to their campus communities as a principled agreement rather than capitulation?'
Anjali Huynh can be reached at