Harvard Is Making Changes Trump Officials Want, Even Without a Deal

Early in the spring, an aggressive and polarizing new presidential administration drafted a menu of demands, many of them very specific, designed to reshape the culture at Harvard, the nation’s richest university.

With billions of dollars in research funds in jeopardy, the university’s leaders are now negotiating with the White House. But an eventual deal may not fully capture the changes, small and large, already enacted at Harvard before any papers are signed.

The university has recoiled at some of the sweeping changes the Trump administration demanded. Harvard’s president, Dr. Alan M. Garber, has singled out several as intrusive and unconstitutional, including demands that might influence whom the university hires and admits.

But it has also taken a host of steps that align with the White House’s desires, checking off items on the administration’s detailed menu, which have ranged from eliminating diversity offices to ousting program leaders. In some cases, students and faculty members worry, the new, Trump-inspired policies may interfere with the freedom of expression that is central to the university’s mission.

President Trump and his appointees have made their attack on Harvard a totem for the changes they want to see across America’s elite universities, using the government’s blunt power to force compliance in a manner never before seen. Universities across the country are watching closely, to see what Harvard might do and what it might be willing to sacrifice, as they seek a way forward for their own campuses.

The Trump administration’s demands included eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs. In April, Harvard renamed its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, which is now called the Office for Community and Campus Life. More recently, Harvard also took down websites for its Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, as well as websites for companion offices for gay and female students, and said they were merging them into a new, single center.