Today, Explained - Why Harvard is fighting back

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

Harvard is refusing to play along with the Trump administration's demands of elite universities, whereas at least 10 Florida public universities are openly cooperating with ICE. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan and Devan Schwartz, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Harvard University's unofficial turkey mascot during a February college basketball game. Photo by Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Harvard University, birthplace of napalm, setting of legally blonde, currently fighting back against the president in his war on higher education. What, like it's hard? You've surely heard about Harvard's showdown with President Trump. He also wants to see Harvard apologize, and Harvard should apologize. Just like you've probably heard about the president's wins over at Columbia. But on the far other side of the spectrum we've got at least 10 Florida state universities. These schools aren't fighting the president. They're going in the complete opposite direction.

They're raising their hands up and waving them at ICE saying, come on in, here's our roster of students. See anything you don't like? Question. Detain. Go to town. On Today Explained, we're going to take a look at the two extremes in this fight, fight, fight at American universities. Hey everybody. Megan Rapinoe here. It's been a big week for UConn Women's basketball and college basketball in general. This week on A Touch More, we're bringing you our live show from the Final Four in Tampa with UConn legend and WNBA champion, Diana Taurasi.

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her strategic playbook of reclaiming legends and building generational wealth. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on the Your Rich BFF YouTube channel. Fight fiercely Harvard. Fight, fight, fight. Demonstrate to them our skill. This is Today Explained. My name is Andrew Jack. I'm the global education editor at the Financial Times based in New York. Did you go to Harvard, Andrew? I did have a year on a fellowship at Harvard many years ago, yes. Oh, you did. So does this story hit home for you?

Well, I mean, I think certainly in sense of there's some degree of skin in the game, I guess. Yeah. Tell us what is going on with your quasi-alma mater right now. Well, Harvard, of course, has been in the sites of the Republicans and Donald Trump for many months. Like other leading universities,

Harvard for a long time was very quiet in public. It wouldn't speak out, it wouldn't give interviews, it was going about its business. And then in recent weeks and months, it's taken a number of moves that some interpreted as attempts to suggest it was responding to the criticisms of the Trump administration But also to try and push back any more aggressive Enforcement actions so it got rid of some senior leadership at its Middle Eastern Studies Center

It's got underway though. We yet to see it a detailed report on Anti-semitism on campus and a number of other initiatives. But really, after the demands escalated from the Trump administration at the end of last week, it switched and decided that it wouldn't accept the conditions that were sought from the government and that instead it would defend academic integrity and free speech. The Trump administration had something like 10 demands for Harvard, including the elimination of DEI programs and the restriction of acceptance of international students who are, and I'm quoting here, hostile to American values and institutions.

Harvard's response? A flat no. Which is interesting, right? Because I think in this moment, this week, a lot of people are saying Harvard stood up to Trump. But what you're saying is this was a process in which they initially were placating Trump. So do we know where this break came from? Did Trump and company push too hard? We don't know the full story. But clearly, this is an evolving situation where also presumably, the Trump administration officials are

adapting in response to a whole series of other actions they've taken both to the higher education sector across the board and to now something like seven of the most elite universities and I suspect that the apparent willingness by Columbia in particular to cede to the demands of the administration gave them a sense of increased empowerment and so they then stepped up their ask to Harvard. Then last week the American Association of University Professors, a network representing professors across the country themselves took legal action against the administration, if you like, on behalf of Harvard.

So you were getting those pressures from within and pressures from without, and a lot of concern by all those engaged with higher education about the attacks from the Trump administration. Yeah, let's leave Cambridge for a second and talk about what's transpired at other East Coast elite universities, Ivy League or otherwise. Let's start with Columbia because I think that's maybe the most important case. An Ivy League school is apparently ceding now to President Trump's demands to do more to combat anti-semitism on campus. The school leaders agreed to a campus mask ban will empower 36 campus officers to have

arrest powers and will appoint a senior vice provost to oversee the Middle East Studies Department. Remind us what exactly happened there and how Columbia conceded to this administration. You'd have to go back really to October 23 and student protests. The chorus of drum beats and chanting could be heard for blocks as pro-California. It happened in the middle of the night. Protesters smashed windows and stormed the building. They barricaded...

Of course, Columbia in the heart of New York, lots of TV crews, lots of politicians marching through. So everybody trying to turn it into a test case and it got very much drawn into the debates during the presidential election. The person that heads up Columbia University was a great school. It's been badly damaged, I think, reputationally. And then in the last few weeks we've seen a series of targeted attacks now on seven of the more elite universities, including Columbia and Harvard, but also Cornell and Princeton and Brown, for example, where they've been told that grants have been frozen and they're bracing for further action by the administration but still waiting somewhat for communications. And as I said, it looks

as though Columbia was the test case. It was one that no doubt the Trump administration considered would be the easiest to go after. And indeed, it's now had two presidents resign within the last few months. Do you have, Andrew, any idea what the size of Columbia's endowment is? Yes, Columbia's endowment is round about $14-15 billion. $14-15 billion. So I think the average person out there might struggle to understand why an elite university with $15 billion in an endowment, who knows what in real estate holdings would have to cave so gravely to the Trump administration to have the Trump administration be making administrative decisions at their university. Can you help people understand what may have gone into a decision like

that? Well, I mean, the first thing to say that you often hear the pushback from even the very well endowed universities is that, you know, those endowments are a long term investment in their future operations, that, of course, much of that money gets reinvested for the longer term, but the surplus. I always hear that, but I don't understand it because this seems like the the break in case of emergency moment. Like if not this then what well and I think yes so I think that there's a few things to say here the first is that certainly much of the surplus income that's generated by endowments is

actually used for financial aid but the second thing is the ivies argue that you know much of the revenue that they generate from their endowment that surplus is actually used to provide discounted or even free tuition for those that are talented but come from lower income backgrounds. So, typically to blow out the endowments is one difficult because a lot of those reserves that go into endowments are earmarked by the people who give them, the donors, for specific causes. But the pressure that we're seeing, the funding withdrawals, the $2.2 billion now at Harvard, for example, that the government says it will withdraw from the university, is actually,

well, it's a little bit unclear, but it primarily seems to come from federal grants for research. So this is not, you know, just a subsidy to a rich university to perpetuate their endowment. It's actually money that's very specifically allocated for projects for research for the future of society. But can, let's say Harvard in that case, with I believe a 50 billion endowment, I think the biggest of any research university in the world, can they dip into that gargantuan sum of money to fill that void in these, you know, two, three, four, 50 years of the Trump administration?

Yes, and I think even at Columbia and a number of the other universities that have been targeted, frankly, despite the complexities we were just discussing, those should provide resources to help them during rainy days. There was a big debate around this after the financial crisis in 2008. There were discussions around it during COVID, of course,

when students had to go online and classes were cancelled and so on. And I think this is absolutely, as if not more of an existential moment, when frankly, taking some of that endowment money to cover the additional risks of some loss of federal funding and indeed the litigation

and uncertainty around it and potentially even some loss of donor funding or students is a cause that would totally justify them dipping into their endowment but also looking at other sources of income. And incidentally, both Harvard and several of the other universities have also in recent weeks been issuing bonds. So they're going to the bond markets to raise money, and that's cash. So that does give them additional reserves to help support or mitigate or prepare to challenge some of this onslaught that they're facing at the moment.

Which is still funny to me, I guess, because I still can't wrap my head around not dipping into the 50 billion and instead selling bonds. They're so nervous to use their endowments. Well, of course, don't forget that in the last few weeks, President Trump has decided to wage war on the world with his tariffs. And that's caused, as you'll have seen, the the stock markets and the bond markets to tank or to bounce around in a very uncertain way. So if you ought to have a fire sale of your assets, which what these endowments are invested in, it also perhaps wouldn't be the right moment to do so. So if you can borrow relatively cheaply with a reputation that's still out there of a great

institution like Harvard, get some money in order to prepare for all sorts of uncertainties and short-term demands on cash. That's probably a rational approach to take. Yeah, who am I to question Harvard's tactics? Now that Harvard is saddling up for a fight with this administration, now that they are inspiring other schools to maybe, you know, take their lead, what can the Trump administration do in response to make this uncomfortable for them? So to be clear, the first response from Harvard has not yet been legal action. It's not yet launched as far as we know a lawsuit, but it has written very robust letters

framed in legal language by some pretty top law firms. So it's very clear they're preparing. They've got a robust attempt to respond to the Trump administration. But even when that set of statements came out that they wouldn't concede, you already saw very quickly the response from the Trump administration saying, we are immediately freezing $2.2 billion worth of assets. So that was point one. We are immediately freezing $2.2 billion worth of assets. So that was point one.

Secondly, we've heard further pushback and indeed on truth social, Donald Trump hinted at some other potential levers and pressure points, including reviewing the tax exempt, the non-charitable status of Harvard. And this is something that universities have been thinking about or concerned about for a while. Again, obviously, which would have a big financial cost were they to lose that status. So a whole series of statements, of potential threats, of other levers, both financial and legal,

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Don't miss Small Ball with Kenny Beecham, new episodes dropping through the playoffs, available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Woo2day Explained. Harvard Columbia. Sure. But what about everyone else? How's this playing out at state schools in say, Florida?

The answer is very differently. Josh Moody's been writing about Sunshine State Schools for Inside Higher Ed schools. You've been hearing less about with all the attention on the Ivy League. You've probably not heard of some of them because it's the Florida State University System, which has 12 members ranging from large schools

with tens of thousands of students to New College of Florida, which has about 800 students. At least 10 of those institutions have signed agreements with ICE, which essentially would give their police department immigration enforcement powers. And what's going on here with the Florida State Schools? Is this a rebrand to like ICEU? What are they doing here?

So Governor Ron DeSantis has taken a pretty hard line on immigration and his directive was for law enforcement agencies to enter into memorandums of agreement with ICE to basically gain immigration enforcement powers, which he argues will make Florida's community safer. This legislation will require state and locals to assist the administration in Washington with reestablishing the rule of law, with removing illegal aliens from our communities, and from protecting public safety. Basically, these agreements, as one expert explained to me, are, he called them force multipliers for ICE. So if you wanted to have more immigration enforcement, you would sign an agreement with ICE to delegate that power locally.

So this is just a way for Florida to expand its immigration enforcement capabilities. You know, the governor, as I mentioned before, has taken a hard line on immigration. You are going to see more effective interior enforcement when you have the state and local and the federal government on the same page. He ran for president previously. I wouldn't be surprised if he does so again. And that could be part of his long-term strategy looking ahead. So in this way, he's sort of outflanking Trump on immigration. And this is just a fun question I love to ask while we're talking about this stuff. Where did Ron DeSantis go to school again? Yeah, all right. Or was it

Harvard? It was both. Okay. Anyway, have any students been detained or deported yet at these Florida state schools like we've seen at say Columbia. 18 students at Florida International University and eight students at the University of Florida have had their visas revoked. We have to make sure we have enough capacity and enough seats for our in-state legal Florida residents. I think it's a betrayal to most of the student body here. And what does that mean? Were they deported?

They would have to leave the country. It doesn't necessarily mean that ICE is going to come scoop them up in a van and facilitate that process, but they would essentially have to begin the process of leaving the country. And do we know what specifically these students have had their visas revoked for? We do not, but that is not uncommon.

That has been the case across the US. Some students have been targeted for their speech. You look at the situation at Tufts and Columbia where students were active in pro-Palestinian protest and the Trump administration has claimed they're anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas, but has not provided any evidence that they have done anything illegal. So in some cases, they're being targeted for their speech. In other cases, they've had visas revoked for crimes committed years ago. And these institutions themselves have often been given no explanation when student statuses were changed. And sometimes they've discovered it by looking in their own systems and seeing that those

statuses have been revoked. We don't know how many international students have been caught up in this, but one of my fellow reporters at Inside Higher Ed is keeping a database and we have counted at least 1200 students at 180 colleges who have lost visas. 1200 students, does that mean there are other schools, university systems around the country that are signing these kinds of agreements with ICE that are cooperating with ICE at this level? Florida institutions are the only ones to have signed agreements with ICE. The professors that I spoke with, the legal experts for this piece, believe this is unprecedented. Neither were aware of

another university ever signing into what is known as a 287-G agreement with ICE. It's sort of a new frontier in immigration enforcement on college campuses. I mean, are students on the campuses of these universities upset to hear that they're signing into agreements with ICE? Yes, there were protests at Florida International University today, which had a board meeting. So now FIU, our university, is collaborating with ICE. The students that I hear from are often upset about what is happening in the state, not just around immigration, but what has been a broader effort by Florida Republicans to really control all aspects of the university, whether that is hiring politicians, lawmakers into the presidencies of these

universities or overhauling general education requirements to minimize certain disciplines like sociology that Florida state officials have deemed liberal. We have worked hard to get woke out of our institutions of higher education and to make sure they're focused on the classical mission of what a university should be. How do you feel what's going on at ICU down in Florida fits into this other fight that we're seeing in the Northeast with Trump going to war with the elite universities? In Florida, this is being done by the state

dictating to these universities, you need to do this to basically carry out state goals around immigration enforcement. Whereas the other examples at places like Harvard and Columbia, this is the Trump administration more or less trying to bring higher education to heel, starting by making an example of some of the most visible universities where there have been some of the most visible pro-Palestinian campus protests over the last year. People are really freaked out. Professors are worried about academic freedom, but also nationally people are worried too because they see Harvard and they see Columbia

being at the forefront of this fight. And even though they are not at all representative of higher education broadly, these are very visible universities and everyone pays attention to these universities. And if they crumble, it seems only likely that your local institution is going to crumble when faced with the same threats. I guess on the show today, we've been talking about these two extremes in this culture war right now. You know, on one, the oldest and most prestigious university in the country, Harvard. And then over here, we've got this pocket

of Florida state schools that are just like throwing up their hands and complying with ICE. But where does that leave in your estimation, like everyone in between those two extremes? Sure, a lot of that comes down to public or private control. And if you are a public university in a dark red state, I would think you should expect that this is coming. If you are at a public university in Texas,

I think you might not be that far behind Florida in terms of an action like this. And that's what I'm hearing from experts too. They tell me that they expect the same. If you're in a blue state, you are a little bit more isolated. If you're a public institution there, private institutions in both will have a lot more latitude. But I don't like to speculate, but I think it is entirely possible that the Trump administration looks at something like this and says, why don't we do this nationwide? What a time. Absolutely.

Josh Moody, though he was quite pleasant when we spoke to him, inside higher ed.com. Miles Bryan and Devin Schwartz made the show, Miranda Kennedy edited it, Andrea Christens' daughter and Patrick Boyd mixed it. I'm Sean Ramos for This Is Today Explained.