Harvard Sues Trump Over SEVP Revocation
Harvard sued the Trump administration Friday morning and filed a temporary restraining order shortly to stop the Department of Homeland Security from revoking its certification to enroll international students.
In the 72-page suit, Harvard accused the DHS of carrying out an “unprecedented and retaliatory” act that threatens to upend the lives of thousands of students just days before graduation. More than 7,000 students study at Harvard on a visa.
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 wrote in a morning message to affiliates that the revocation is both “unlawful and unwarranted.”
“It imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams,” he added.
The legal maneuver comes less than 24 hours after the DHS informed Harvard it was no longer certified under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program — a designation the University has held without interruption for more than 70 years — over allegations of campus antisemitism and racebased discrimination. Hours after the lawsuit was filed, a federal judge granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order. Without SEVP status, current and prospective international students would need to transfer to another university or lose their ability to stay in the United States legally.
In its court filing, Harvard de-
scribed the decertification as a politically motivated act of retaliation carried out “without process or cause,” aimed at coercing the University into imposing ideological litmus tests on its admissions, hiring, and academic programs.
“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,” the lawsuit states.
Harvard argued that the revocation of its SEVP status also violated the First Amendment by infringing on the University’s academic freedom and retaliating against Harvard for engaging in constitutionally protected speech.
The Friday morning lawsuit is Harvard’s second legal challenge to the Trump administration, following a lawsuit against the White House over multibillion dollar cuts to the University’s research fund-
ing. A hearing date for the first lawsuit is set for July 21 after a federal judge agreed to expedite the process, but more than $2.7 billion in federal funding remains frozen.
In its request for a TRO, which would temporarily block the DHS’ order while the matter proceeds through court, Harvard argued that the order would cause “immediate and irreparable harm” to the University, and claimed the government’s actions were driven by political retaliation rather than legitimate enforcement.
“While in many cases, one might need discovery to unearth evidence of forbidden motivation, here numerous officials up to and including the President laid their retaliatory motive bare,” the motion states.
In the lawsuit, Harvard set up its case for the TRO that the DHS’ order would “seriously and immediately disrupt the University’s ongoing, day-to-day operations.” Revoking
Harvard’s SEVP certification would displace the F-1 and J-1 student and exchange visa holders who study at Harvard and serve as instructors, advisers, and medical care providers, the lawsuit argued.
If a judge does not approve Harvard’s request for a TRO by Sunday, the DHS could move forward with terminating the visa status of thousands of international students enrolled at the University.
If carried out, the change “impairs the educational experience of all Harvard students by diminishing the global character and overall strength of the institution,” the University’s lawyers argued.
Harvard also claimed that decertification would place it at a “competitive disadvantage” relative to peer schools in the admissions process, arguing that it could be prevented from admitting visa holders for two years and that international students could remain wary of applying to Harvard for far
longer.
Harvard’s lawyers alleged in the Friday suit that the DHS did not follow legally required procedures or afford the University basic due process protections before revoking its SEVP certification.
The DHS justified its revocation by alleging that Harvard’s response to a sprawling records request on April 16 was “insufficient” — and that Harvard “ignored” a second request issued to Harvard after its first submission.
But in the lawsuit and Garber’s email, Harvard insisted that it had complied with the DHS’ request, citing two document productions on April 30 and May 14.
The DHS’ request asked for eight categories of information on international students, including data regarding their disciplinary records, protest participation, and documentation of “dangerous or violent activity.” Harvard officials have repeatedly declined to speci-
fy which documents the University turned over to the DHS on April 30. On May 7, the DHS notified Harvard that the department considered the initial submission “incomplete” and “asked for four of the eight categories of information referenced in the initial request,” according to Harvard’s lawsuit. The University conducted a second search and “again produced additional responsive information,” according to the lawsuit. Harvard’s second document submission, on May 14, was not publicly disclosed until Friday.
The lawsuit named the DHS, the Department of Justice, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of State as defendants. Harvard is represented in the case by Robert K. Hur ’95 and William A. Burck, both of whom previously served in high-level roles under United States President Donald Trump, alongside attorneys from Jenner & Block and Lehotsky Keller Cohn. The DHS’ decertification letter cited allegations of a hostile campus environment at Harvard, including claims of antisemitism incidents and enforcement of what it called “radical” diversity, equity, and inclusion politics. It also referenced Harvard’s alleged failure to vet international students for ideological leanings.
But the
Harvard’s tax-exempt status in an April 15 post on Truth Social. Just one day later, DHS delivered the April 16 records request, which the University said included unprecedented demands far outside the scope of existing regulations.
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Trump Revokes Harvard’s Authorization To Enroll Int’l Students
cording to a person familiar with the matter. Harvard has not yet filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
The Trump administration revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students on Thursday, dramatically escalating the administration’s fight with the University and threatening thousands of current students. In a letter addressed to Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote that Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification was halted, “effective immediately.” The revocation would prevent Harvard from enrolling any international students on F- or J- nonimmigrant visas for the 2025-2026 academic year. Harvard currently hosts more than 6,000 international students, many of whom attend on F-1 or J-1 visas.
The announcement comes just one week before thousands of international students at Harvard are set to graduate. The move is likely to prompt a legal challenge from Harvard, ac-
Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton called the DHS’s move “unlawful” and wrote that Harvard was “fully committed” to maintaining Harvard’s ability to enroll international students.
“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” he wrote in a statement.
In a press release, Noem announced that current international students must “transfer or lose their legal status.”
When a university’s SEVP certification is revoked, currently enrolled international students must choose between transferring to a different institution, changing their immigration status, or leaving the country, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement website.
The move comes three weeks after Harvard partially submitted disciplinary records of international students that were requested by the Trump administration in mid-April. Administrators have declined to specify what informa-
tion was shared with the agency.
The DHS initially sent Harvard an April 16 letter demanding the University provide information on international students’ campus activities, including protest participation. Noem had threatened to revoke Harvard’s SEVP certification if it did not comply.
In the letter to Garber, Noem alleged that the records that Harvard submitted on April 30 were “insufficient” and failed to address “simple reporting requirements.” She also accused Harvard of “perpetuating an unsafe campus envi-
ronment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, you have lost this privilege.”
A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to Noem’s letter to Garber, the DHS reiterated its records request after Harvard’s initial response, offering the University’s Office of General Counsel a second chance to turn over additional documents.
But the DHS alleged that Harvard “ignored” the request for the second set of documents.
Noem gave Harvard 72 hours to turn over a flurry of documents to the DHS to have “the opportunity” to regain its SEVP certification before the upcoming academic year.
Those documents include paper records, audio, and video of protest activity by any international student enrolled at any of Harvard’s schools in the last five years. The DHS also asked for the full slate of disciplinary records of international students at Harvard for the last five years.
It is unclear whether the Trump administration will restore Harvard’s SEVP certification if it submits the requested documents.
Thursday’s letter followed several days of back-and-forth between Harvard and the White House over the legality of the records request, The New York Times reported, citing three unnamed sources. Leo Gerdén ’25, an international student from Sweden, said the announcement was “devastating” and that Harvard needs to fight the DHS decision “as hard as we possibly can.”
Karl N. Molden ’27, another international student and organizer of Harvard Students for Freedom with Gerdén, said the federal government’s actions have created widespread panic among students.
“The federal government is asking us to transfer out,” Molden said. “They now have to go through this stressful procedure again, find a university, and transfer their credits, and lose all their friends.”
“It looks like it’s all falling apart,” he added. Still, Molden said he had faith in Harvard’s ability to push back against the Trump administration’s efforts.
“They’re doing the best that they can to support us,” he said. “But it’s absolutely terrible, and it’s shocking.”
“Every tool available they should use to try and change this. It could be all the legal resources suing the Trump administration, whatever they can use the endowment to, whatever they can use their political network in Congress,” Gerdén said. “This should be, by far, priority number one.”
The Trump administration revoked Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification. E. MATTEO DIAZ — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
Judge Restores Harvard’s SEVP Status
INTERIM RELIEF. A judge granted Harvard’s request for a temporary restraining order to allow the enrollment of international students.
BY DHRUV T. PATEL AND GRACE E. YOON CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Afederal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.
The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt on May 22 to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”
United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”
In their motion for a temporary restraining order, Harvard’s lawyers laid out the case that allowing the DHS order to take effect would leave a stark, irreversible scar on Harvard’s campus. They wrote that SEVP revocation could strip thousands of student visa holders of their legal status “overnight,” rendering them and more than 300 dependents subject to deportation. International students in Harvard’s admitted class would not be able to enroll even after committing to the school, and “Harvard would be forced to dramatically shrink or reconfigure its carefully craft-
ed incoming classes in a matter of weeks,” the University’s lawyers argued.
Current students would be forced to transfer to a different SEVP certified university or return to their home country. In total, Harvard would lose 26 percent of its student body, according to the lawsuit. And decertification now — even if Harvard’s status were eventually restored — could deter international students from applying and enrolling in the future.
The TRO motion also pointed out that international students are teaching fellows, researchers, and classmates alongside their American citizen peers, and losing them would leave a rift.
The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.
Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the May 22 move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over documents requested by the DHS before a Sunday deadline.
In a message to University affiliates on Friday afternoon, Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 wrote the TRO was “a critical step to protect the rights and opportunities of our international students and scholars.”
The Thursday decision follows a long back-and-forth between Harvard and the DHS over international students, whom the Trump
administration has targeted in its accusations that Harvard has fostered antisemitism.
In April, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem demanded that Harvard turn over documents on international students’ disciplinary records, illegal activities, and participation in protests.
But Harvard only partially complied with the records request, submitting information that it said was required by the law. Administrators have since refused to specify what
documents Harvard has turned over to the DHS.
On Thursday, the DHS alleged that Harvard had ignored and refused to comply with a second records request they had issued in early May in response to what they called an “insufficient” first submission from the University. Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 insisted on Friday, though, that the University had responded to both the April and May requests in a law-abiding
way.
The DHS had ordered Harvard on Thursday to submit another set of documents within 72 hours to have “the opportunity” to regain its SEVP certification — but Burroughs’ move now preempts that directive.
Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s
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International Students Left Anxious by Harvard’s Clash With DHS
BY DARCY G LIN, WILLIAM C. MAO, AND VERONICA H. PAULUS CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Austrian student Karl N. Molden ’27 learned that the Trump administration had stripped Harvard of its ability to enroll international students when his phone began “exploding” on Thursday with text messages from his peers.
“I got so many push notifications like I usually don’t do, and so I figured something must have happened. I looked at it and then I see this news and it’s insane,” Molden said. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification had been halted “effective immediately” in a Thursday letter to Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76.
The announcement — which came more than a month after the DHS threatened to revoke Harvard’s authorization to enroll foreign students in April — did not surprise international students. But they were left anxious and confused about what their future might look like, prompting many to begin grappling with the threat of no longer studying at Harvard.
Noah G. Plattner ’27 said that though the Trump administration’s earlier threat made the Thursday announcement “less unexpected,” the move was still jarring.
“Some people’s livelihoods and some people’s future really, really depended solely on being able to go to Harvard and make a better life for their families,” said Plattner, an international student from Austria.
Sofia Yaliztli Ackerman ’25, who is from Mexico, said “it just kind of feels like being stripped away from a dream.”
Harvard announced Friday morning that it had sued the Trump administration and that it filed a temporary restraining order to stop the DHS from revoking its SEVP credentials. The restraining order was granted hours later.
But before the announcement arrived, students said they were left unsettled throughout Thursday without any guidance from Harvard’s top administrators.
“Within the international students, everyone is very scared and doesn’t really know what to do,” Ackerman said. “At some point we don’t really know how much to actually be scared or not, because within a day or so or within a couple hours, the decisions change.”
The situation “adds up to a general feeling of not just general uncertainty, but now uncertainty about my future,” said Oksana Trefanenko ’28, a student from Ukraine.
International students at Har-
vard said it was too soon to determine their next steps amid the shifting legal landscape. Though messaging from the White House urgently instructed students to transfer to another university “or lose their legal status,” Garber’s Friday morning email signaled forthcoming updates from the International Office and did not address the need to transfer.
But with deadlines for transfer applications to most other universities long passed, several international students said they don’t consider it a viable option, especially while they await official guidance from the University.
“Some people are saying, ‘Oh, what if we just transfer, like we just go to MIT instead or to a random other Boston school and just attend classes at Harvard through cross-registration?’” Plattner said.
“But these are all rumors that are floating around.”
Lavrenchuk — who is original-
ly from Ukraine — said that she has considered taking a gap semester, but that would mean not graduating alongside her friends. Instead, she sees applying to Harvard’s study abroad programs as “more feasible.” Noem also gave Harvard 72 hours to submit international students’ disciplinary records to have the “opportunity” to regain its certification to enroll international students. Some students said they are trying to catch flights back to the U.S. within Noem’s three-day window, while others still in the country are cancelling flights home.
A few international students even joked about marrying friends who are U.S. citizens to gain citizenship. Eliot House aide Gabrielle A. David ’23-24 said that her fellow House aide, who is from the United Kingdom, jokingly called her about getting married after hearing the news.
The air of trepidation also
spread to non-international students, like Ace I. Mejía-Sánchez ’25, who said she is “fearful” for her international friends.
“I think we’re all devastated on behalf of our peers and our friends and worried about whether their safety is at risk,” Mejía-Sánchez said.
In interviews prior to Harvard’s Friday lawsuit announcement, students expressed hope that Harvard would not capitulate to the Trump administration’s demands.
“We’re very hopeful Harvard will stand up for basically one quarter of its population and fight for our rights, because they’re the same as of any other students,” Trefanenko said.
“We’re not immigrants to this country. We’re not refugees. We’re just students,” she added.
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What SEVP Revocation Would Mean for International Students
Immigration attorney Dahl -
Current international students will need to transfer out of Harvard or risk losing their ability to remain in the United States lawfully if the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to revoke Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification remains in effect. While it is likely that Harvard will challenge the revocation in court, the loss of SEVP certification would be catastrophic for those who rely on student visas to attend Harvard. SEVP certification, which is issued by the DHS, authorizes colleges and universities to enroll international students on F-1 and M-1 visas — the most common type of student visas. Without the certification, institutions cannot issue the Form I-20, which serves as proof of enrollment and is necessary for visitors to maintain student status. The DHS revoked Harvard’s
SEVP certification in a May 22 notice — just over three weeks after Harvard announced they had partially complied with demands from the agency outlined in an April 16 letter requesting information about international students’ protest activity. Despite the sweeping nature of the directive, students that are set to graduate from Harvard during next week’s Commencement ceremony should be eligible to receive their degrees, according to eight immigration lawyers who spoke with The Crimson.
“If students have completed all of their graduation requirements, they should still be able to graduate, so that shouldn’t be an issue,” said Nicole Hallett, a immigration rights professor at the University of Chicago’s law school.
Harvard has not commented on how the DHS directive could impact affiliates’ ability to graduate next week or continue their studies at the University.
University spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote that the DHS’s decision was “unlawful” and that Harvard was “fully
committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars” in a Thursday statement.
But Bhuvanyaa Vijay, an immigration attorney at the Law Office of Johanna M. Herrero and graduate of Harvard Law School, said that unless the DHS reverses course on the decision to terminate Harvard’s SEVP certification, international students attending Harvard next year are in trouble.
“It is very simple: if the status is not reverted to original, then Harvard cannot have international students in the coming year,” Vijay said. The revocation of Harvard’s SEVP status does not immediately invalidate student visas, according to Vijay. Instead, she said the agency is likely to give students some grace period to determine how they will respond before taking more drastic measures.
“They did not say 15 days or 60 days or two days — nothing,” Vijay said. “When we get such clients, we tell them to ‘hurry up,’ and within 15 days at best, try to transfer.”
ia M. French also said there will be a deadline for students to address their immigration status or transfer, though the DHS has not publicly announced one.
Students who transfer to a SEVP-certified university would be able to retain a valid I-20, and thus avoid losing their visas. But the transfer deadline for many schools falls in March, meaning students’ status in the U.S. would be in jeopardy while they wait for applications to open.
And for some visa-holders enrolled in Optional Practical Training, which enables participants to remain in the country for work up to three years after graduation, transfer is not an option, according to former vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association Jeff Joseph.
“If you’re in a period of Optional Practical Training after your graduation and you transfer to a school, that serves to automatically terminate your work authorization,” Joseph said.
Minutes after Harvard lost its SEVP status, a federal judge
in California blocked an order terminating the legal status of international students nationwide. The judge’s order convinced many that Harvard’s SEVP status was still intact, but the two cases are unrelated.
According to five immigration lawyers, the California case addressed individual students who had their visas revoked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after criminal record checks, not sweeping changes to a university’s status. The Thursday order, however, revoked Harvard’s authorization to enroll international students on student visas as a whole.
“One has to do with ICE’s authority to terminate SEVIS status,” Joseph said. “And then the other is the DHS’s authority to take away Harvard’s ability to even use SEVIS.”
Though the consequences of the Thursday decision will be far-reaching, the move is likely to prompt a legal challenge from Harvard, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Immigration lawyers say the next step for Harvard is filing a temporary restraining or -
der or a preliminary injunction — a legal measure that prevents the White House from revoking Harvard’s eligibility to admit international students while the court determines its legality.
“I’m sure that they’re well prepared to file it immediately,” said Ian A. Campbell, an immigration attorney and HLS graduate.
Harvard had not announced plans to file for a TRO or preliminary injunction as of 8 p.m. on Thursday.
But even if the University requests a TRO, the protection is only temporary — and the status of international students will remain in limbo, leaving them unable to make long-term future plans with any confidence.
“When you have an administration that isn’t concerned with following laws and processes, it’s hard to predict what will happen,” Campbell wrote in a follow-up statement. “But unfortunately, it could get ugly.”
The John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse is located in Boston. NAOMI S. CASTELLON-PEREZ — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION
David Deming Named Harvard College Dean
Trump administration’s cuts to research funding will “make America sicker and poorer in the long run.”
BY SAMUEL A. CHURCH AND CAM N. SRIVASTAVA CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Harvard Kennedy School professor David J. Deming will serve as the next dean of Harvard College, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced in a May 13 email. The decision comes about nine months after current College Dean Rakesh Khurana announced in August that he would step down at the end of this academic year. He has held the position since 2014.
Deming, who serves as Kirkland House faculty dean and also holds an appointment at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will assume the deanship on July 1. He and his wife, Boston Children’s Hospital administrator Janine M. Santimauro, will step down from their faculty dean roles at the end of June.
Deming will take up his new post as Harvard faces an unprecedented battle with the Trump administration. Hoekstra initially told faculty she hoped to make the announcement earlier in the spring semester to maximize overlap with Khurana’s term, and Deming was interviewed for the deanship at least as far back as March.
Now, his appointment comes as undergraduates begin to leave campus — and the same day as the federal government dealt another $450 million blow to Harvard’s federal funding.
With Deming, Hoekstra has tapped a College dean who is not a vocal figure in campus politics — but has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump. In a February article in The Atlantic, Deming wrote that the
Deming will be the first College dean since the office took its modern form in the 1980s not to hold an appointment in the FAS — Harvard’s oldest and most powerful faculty, and the home of Harvard College.
He has nonetheless been heavily involved in undergraduate life through his role as Kirkland’s faculty dean, to which he was appointed in 2020. He began teaching a freshman seminar in 2018. In the announcement, Hoekstra praised Deming as “recognized and respected expert in higher education research and policy, an inspiring academic leader, and a beloved faculty dean with a deep, authentic connection to undergraduate life.”
“David is uniquely well suited to lead the College at this consequential moment in Harvard’s history,” she wrote.
Deming previously served as the Kennedy School’s academic dean from 2021 to 2024. After former HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf resigned at the end of 2023, Deming emerged as a frontrunner for the deanship, but was ultimately not selected.
Deming’s research focuses on higher education, economic inequality, and evolving labor markets. In 2022, he was awarded the Sherwin Rosen Prize for his contributions to labor economics.
His scholarship involves extensive research on elite universities and social mobility. His work has closely guided Harvard’s own admissions policies — so much so that the University cited a study he co-authored on SAT scores’ predictive power in its decision to reinstate a standardized testing requirement in undergraduate admissions.
Now, Deming will lead the
College at a time when faculty and administrators have sought to keep students focused on their work inside the classroom — and to make sure they feel comfortable sharing their viewpoints amid a series of prominent reports showing hesitancy to speak on controversial topics in class.
But the most imminent challenges Deming will face as dean may come from outside of Harvard.
As Harvard grapples with the Trump administration’s nearly $3 billion cuts to Harvard’s federal funding, as well as threats to international students’ status, Deming will have to navigate an unprecedented political climate and adapt accordingly.
Trump’s funding cuts have had their harshest effects on Harvard’s Longwood medical campus, but the FAS — a research powerhouse in its own right whose work is also heavily backed by federal funding — has similarly started to impose austerity measures, including caps on pay and a freeze on staff hiring for the next fiscal year.
The FAS has committed to keeping spending flat in fiscal year 2026 and conducting no new full-time hires — meaning Deming will enter with significant constraints on his ability to shape programs and his staff. The FAS’ guidance, which urged administrators to phase out “low-priority” initiatives, suggests that one of his first tasks may be helping Hoekstra choose where in the College’s budget to make cuts.
The College dean has historically had a limited role in Harvard fundraising. But Khurana has been praised for his work to recruit donors to the College’s Intellectual Vitality Initiative. And Hoekstra praised Deming’s fundraising skills, writing that as director of the Kennedy School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, “he helped
recruit top faculty and raise major gifts to support their work.”
A talent for wooing donors and making faculty hires may be an especially coveted quality as Harvard braces for years of ripple effects from Washington’s funding cuts.
Deming’s appointment to College dean will also put him at the helm of the Administrative Board, which faced a legitimacy crisis among student activists and some faculty after it meted out punishments for undergraduates who participated in the pro-Palestine Harvard Yard encampment last spring.
And his appointment was announced around a month after a faculty committee proposed changes to the structure of the College’s disciplinary body, the Administrative Board, after a monthslong review — changes which he may be expected to implement.
But federal lawmakers have also put Harvard’s disciplinary policies under a microscope, and the College may face pressure to take a more punitive line against protesters amid threats from Trump and a lawsuit alleging Harvard permitted antisemitism on campus. Harvard’s governing boards have already moved to centralize some disciplinary cases under University President Alan M. Garber ’76.
As College dean, Khurana has largely refrained from making public statements on the administration’s targeting of international students, despite heightened anxiety among undergraduates, instead directing students to the Harvard International Office.
With just months left of his deanship, Khurana has nonetheless been one of the most visible campus officials — and the only one to continue a tradition of regular interviews with The Crimson. He offered a defense of diversity at Harvard in February and accused the Trump administration of using an -
tisemitism as a pretext to attack Harvard at an April 1 faculty meeting. Facing a review of billions of dollars in multiyear federal funding commitments to Harvard, Khurana urged Harvard to defend its autonomy — weeks before Harvard rejected wide-ranging demands subsequently imposed by the Trump administration. Khurana has also been an outsized figure in undergraduate life, omnipresent at campus events, a frequent witness to student protests, and famous for snapping selfies with students. Faced with Khurana’s gregarious 11-year precedent, it remains to be seen whether Deming will carve a similar role for himself on campus. Deming was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and lived there until his family moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio — a Cleveland suburb — when he was 15. He holds undergraduate degrees from the Ohio State University in political science and economics, a master’s in public
Kirkland Students Say Deming’s Dean Appointment Is ‘Bittersweet’
excited about the future of the College under Deming’s leadership, but sad to be losing him as their faculty dean.
David J. Deming was met with a standing ovation as he entered the Kirkland House dining hall the evening of May 13, hours after Faculty of Arts and Science Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced he would leave his current role as faculty dean to serve as the next dean of Harvard College. For 30 minutes, Deming hugged students and walked from table to table, snapping selfies, accepting flowers, and exchanging his navy blazer for a Kirkland House crewneck before delivering a short address to chants of “speech, speech!” from his audience. Standing on a table in the center of the dhall, Deming — a Harvard Kennedy School professor — told students and House staff that he was “incredibly grateful” for his time at Kirkland.
“Thinking about all the good times we’ve had here, we’ve raised our children here, we’ve met so many great people — people in this room, people who have graduated — and it’s just been such an incredible opportunity,” Deming said. “We’ll love Kirkland House forever.”
Deming’s appointment caps off a search process that began nearly nine months ago, when current College Dean Rakesh Khurana announced in August that he would step down at the end of the academic year.
Deming and his wife, Boston Children’s Hospital administrator Janine M. Santimauro, will leave their faculty dean roles on June 30. In an email to Kirkland residents, Khurana wrote that a search for interim faculty deans would begin “immediately” and that a search for permanent replacements would take place in the fall. The Crimson spoke with 18 Kirkland House students Tuesday evening who said they were
“It’s definitely bittersweet,” said Joanna Nunez ’27, a Kirkland House resident. Kirkland is known among undergraduates for its cramped dorms and frequent pest issues — and for its history as Mark Zuckerberg’s college dorm. But in recent years, Kirkland has also gained a reputation for quirky and tight-knit House spirit.
Every Sunday at midnight, students flock to the Kirkland dining hall to participate in the “Choosening,” a ritual where students draw a word from an animal cracker jar as a punny theme for the week. Kirklanders organize an elaborate annual Secret Santa gift exchange — which can escalate to uproarious pranks. And the House clinched three back-to-back championships in intramural sports under Deming and Santimauro, winning the Straus Cup in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Deming thanked Kirkland staff and residents in a Tuesday afternoon email.
“Our decision to step down has been a difficult one, but we felt we owed it to this community to have a leader who can give you their full, undivided attention,” he wrote. “You deserve nothing less.”
Standing on the dhall chair that evening, Deming encouraged students not to fret about his departure.
“I do want you to know that it’s not any one person or people that make this place special — it is the community,” he said. “All of you guys are going to be fine. You’re going to be like, ‘who are those guys?’ after a couple of years, I promise. This is such a special place.”
Andrew Lobo ’25 said before the speech that he has developed a friendship with Deming through dining hall conversations, bi-weekly open houses,
and Kirkland Boat Club cookie-eating socials, which he said Deming regularly attends.
“We have Boat Club every week, where we just eat cookies and he’ll chat with you for like an hour and a half, literally just eating cookies and sipping on milk in the senior common room,” Lobo said. “I hang around with them in the dining hall all the time, just chat, talk about life. They come to my volleyball games.”
Several students said that Deming takes up singing roles in annual Kirkland Drama Society productions with wholehearted enthusiasm.
Harry J. Cotter ’25-’26 recalled one such occasion during the society’s spring 2024 performance.
“He was willing to get up in
front of everyone for the Kirkland Drama Society show and perform the song that he had originally performed to get Janine to go on a date with him,” Cotter said. “It just showed his openness and willingness to send it for the House.
The song? Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”
“They’re just not afraid to be silly,” Kritika Nagappa ’26 said. “They’re always in the shows, they’re always dressing up.
They’re really buying in, and I think that’s the reason why all the students buy in the way that we do.”
Despite their ambivalence about Deming’s departure, Kirkland students expressed excitement for his new responsibilities and confidence that he would be able to fill the shoes of Khurana.
“Especially given the types of things that’s going on at Harvard right now, there’s no one better for the job,” Lobo said. “His research is very relevant to college education, different labor markets.”
Deming will enter the deanship at a particularly precarious time for Harvard. With the University facing nearly $3 billion in federal funding cuts and threats to international students’ status that have kept undergraduates on edge, Deming will have his work cut out for him.
“Nobody’s perfectly suited to address everything that’s going on, but he’s one of the more well-positioned,” Cotter said.
“I have no doubt that David Deming will be able to be similar in that way,” Michael J. Moorman ’25 said.
“Anyone that’s had even one conversation with David can tell how brilliant and joyful he is, which I think are two qualities that the dean needs to have,” Cotter added.
Deming told a group of students in the Kirkland courtyard before dinner on Tuesday evening that, as dean, he would not have a similar social media presence to Khurana, who posts regular selfies with students on his Instagram page, which students have dubbed the “Khuranagram.” But several students said they were not worried about Deming’s ability to maintain an approachable attitude.
NEW DEAN. After a decade under Khurana, the College will change hands in July.
WHITE HOUSE
Trump Axes $450 Million More in Funding
DEFUNDED. The cut was levied on top of a $2.2 billion freeze and preemptive block to new grants.
BY DHRUV T. PATEL AND GRACE E. YOON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The Trump administration froze another $450 million in federal grants and contracts to Harvard on May 13, accusing the University of failing to take action on antisemitism and discrimination against white people on campus.
The cut — which covers grants awarded by eight unspecified federal agencies — comes on top of the $2.2 billion funding cut announced last month and an announcement last week that Harvard would be cut off from future federal grants.
In a press release announcing the latest cut, officials from a multi-agency task force cited a 300page report from an internal Harvard task force on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias, which was released two weeks ago and detailed complaints from Jewish and Israe-
li students of exclusion and hostility on campus.
“Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination,” the federal task force wrote. “This is not leadership; it is cowardice.”
The group did not mention — and appeared unconcerned by — findings of discrimination and isolation in a parallel Harvard task force report on anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian bias.
A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The cut comes just one day after Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 condemned Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s decision to pause all future grants to Harvard, writing in a three-page letter that the Trump administration had continually “disregarded Harvard’s compliance with the law.”
The task force pointed to the long-awaited final reports of the presidential task force on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias — which included a flurry of accounts of Harvard affiliates encountering
antisemitism on campus — as an example of the “appalling” treatment of Jewish students on campus.
“Jewish students were subjected to pervasive insults, physical assault, and intimidation, with no meaningful response from Harvard’s leadership,” they wrote.
The task force also singled out the Harvard Law Review, an independent student organization which is currently under a Title VI investigation for discriminating based on race and gender in article selection and journal membership.
The force condemned the Law Review’s decision to award a $65,000 fellowship to Ibrahim Bharmal, who was ordered to complete 80 hours of community service following a drawn-out court process over a confrontation at a 2023 pro-Palestine demonstration at the Harvard Business School.
Unlike the first funding cut, which focused squarely on Harvard’s response to antisemitism, the May 13 announcement also expanded its focus to race.
dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com grace.yoon@thecrimson.com
Researchers Get Termination Notices After Grants Are Cut
BY SAKETH SUNDAR CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
More than 100 Harvard researchers received termination notices for federally funded research projects on May 15, as sweeping cuts to the majority of Harvard’s federal grants begin taking effect across the University’s labs.
The notices, delivered via email from Harvard’s Grants Management Application Suite, informed recipients that their projects had been terminated “per notice from the federal funding agency” and contained a list of terminated grants.
“You are receiving this e-mail because one (or more) of your projects have been terminated,” the emails read.
Harvard Assistant Vice President for Sponsored Programs Kelly Morrison and Chief Research Compliance Officer Ara Tahmassian had warned the researchers in a separate May 14 email that the majority of Harvard’s awards from federal agencies were terminated.
“The University has received letters from most federal agencies indicating that the majority of our active, direct federal grants have been terminated,” they wrote to recipients.
Some of the terminated grants exceeded $1 million, funding entire research operations, including salaries for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and lab technicians.
“At this stage, I do not know what the terminations mean for my current group of 10 graduate students and postdocs, of which 8 relied 100 percent on those grants for salary support,” wrote Chemistry professor Eric N. Jacobsen.
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 also announced on May 14 that the University would allocate $250 million in funding over the next year to support research affected by federal actions.
Morrison and Tahmassian instructed principal investigators with affected awards to continue working on their projects and charging expenses to project funds.
Lab directors were also told to limit non-personnel spending to essential needs, pause capital equipment purchases and new contractual commitments where appropriate, evaluate whether outgoing subawards could be ended, and halt any new hiring or backfills tied to the affected grants. The widespread terminations mark the biggest tangible blow yet in the federal funding crisis at Harvard, where researchers have been bracing
for fallout from Harvard’s battle with the White House for weeks. Seven federal agencies formally notified the University last week that they would cancel existing grants, triggering Thursday’s termination wave.
The blanket terminations are the latest in a series of hits to Harvard’s research enterprise — a $2.2 billion slash in April, another $450 million cut weeks later, and a ban on future federal awards to Harvard. After the initial freeze in April, a few researchers received stop-work orders directly from federal agencies.
In response, schools across the University had already begun implementing emergency planning.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences asked departments to prepare for budget cuts of up to 20 percent. The School of Public Health requested lab funding breakdowns to help allocate “scarce internal resources,” and it announced layoffs and program cuts alongside its neighbor Harvard Medical School shortly after the initial $2.2 billion cut.
Facing uncertainty, lab directors say their current priority is keeping their teams employed.
“In my own group, the terminations mean that I will be dipping into some of my emergency savings (industry gifts and other non-federal money that I was able to save up for emergencies),” Computer Science professor Krzysztof Z. Gajos wrote in an emailed statement. “My students have also already offered to do additional TF-ing to help stretch our funding.”
Several lab directors said they worry the funding crisis will hit students and early-career researchers hardest.
“The largest and most immediate concern is the financial security of the postdocs, graduate
students, technicians, and others working in these labs who are incredibly committed to their work and are often in financially vulnerable situations,” Organismic and Evolutionary Biology professor Benton N. Taylor wrote. “For most PIs stewarding these grants, our current focus is on keeping these people secure.”
“The tragedy here is that we are going to sacrifice an entire generation of young scientists and engineers,” wrote William L. Wilson, executive director of the Center for Nanoscale Systems.
Students have already begun feeling the impacts of the midMay terminations. On Friday, undergraduates who applied to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ Research Experience for Undergraduates — a program largely supported by the National Science Foundation — received early rejection notices.
“We regret to inform you that, due to significant reductions in federal funding, we have had to end our admissions process early and are unable to offer additional placements this year,” the email read. “We also welcome you to share your experience with your state representatives, as continued investment in research opportunities is critical for students like yourself.”
Many Harvard researchers took to social media to express their anger and disbelief, drawing attention to the abrupt nature of the cuts.
“My partner Serena’s mom is dying from ALS. The NIH grant supporting the scientists in my lab working hard on a cure was just terminated. No words,” HMS professor David A. Sinclair wrote in a post on X.
saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com
Harvard Asks To Expand Lawsuit to 2 More Federal Agencies
any actual violations of the law.
Harvard asked on Tuesday to name two more federal agencies in its lawsuit against the Trump administration and encompass the administration’s expanding campaign against Harvard, which now targets more than $2.6 billion in federal funding and all future grants.
The United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are named as defendants in Harvard’s amended complaint, which the University filed Tuesday afternoon — hours after the federal government announced an additional $450 million cut to Harvard’s funding.
Harvard argues that the Trump administration’s actions are a violation of its institutional First Amendment rights as well as federal procedures. In the amended complaint, the University doubled down on its claim that the funding cuts were retaliation for its refusal of the government’s demands and, now, for its lawsuit.
After Harvard first sued on April 22, the Trump administration only intensified its crusade against the University. On May 5, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent a letter to Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 announcing the federal government would no longer
award the University grants. And according to documents released by Harvard alongside the amended complaint, seven government agencies sent the University notifications following McMahon’s announcement that they would terminate grant funding.
Just hours after McMahon’s May 5 letter was sent, the National Institutes of Health sent its own letter announcing the termination of the University’s federal funding, citing that its research no longer met the agency’s standard for public benefit. Four days later, the USAD followed suit, issuing a similarly worded notice cutting Harvard’s grants over allegations that the University fostered antisemitism.
Then on Monday, the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, HUD, and National Science Foundation sent analogous letters notifying Harvard of funding cuts. The Department of Education sent individual grant termination notices on the same day.
The amended lawsuit expands the scope of Harvard’s claims to include not just the freeze of contracts but their termination by multiple federal agencies.
All the letters attributed the terminations to Harvard’s lack of response to antisemitism. But Harvard’s lawsuit argued that the government bypassed Title VI Civil Rights Act’s specific enforcement procedures and failed to identify
The amended lawsuit pointed to the letters as a concerted effort by the Trump administration to “leverage Harvard’s federal funding to indirectly infringe Harvard’s constitutionally protected academic freedom.” The agencies also gave the University no opportunity to respond to its allegations before it was “blacklisted” from future grants, the lawsuit argues.
The government “has not identified—and cannot— identify —any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen or terminated,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote. The amended filing also cited President Donald Trump’s threats to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status on social media as a further example of how the government was pushing to punish the University for protecting its constitutional rights.
The Monday amendments did not request a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, which would have temporarily prevented the Trump administration from enforcing the funding freeze, despite the slew of funding cuts. A hearing date for the lawsuit is set for July 21 after a federal judge agreed to expedite the process.
dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com grace.yoon@thecrimson.com
HHS Freezes $60M in Grants
BY DHRUV T. PATEL AND GRACE E. YOON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The United States Department of Health and Human Services cut an additional $60 million in multiyear grants to Harvard over allegations of campus antisemitism and racial discrimination on May 19 — the Trump administration’s third funding cut to Harvard in the last two months.
The cut, which was announced by the agency on X late that evening and applies only to HHS-sponsored grants, comes in addition to the $450 million cut announced last week and the $2.2 billion cut announced last month by eight federal agencies.
In a post on X announcing the cut, the HHS took aim at Harvard’s “continued failure to address anti-Semitic harassment and race discrimination.”
“HHS is taking decisive action to uphold civil rights in higher education,” the agency wrote.
A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a re-
quest for comment to confirm whether the University received the letter. Harvard has sued the Trump administration over the first two funding cuts, alleging they overstepped the bounds of agency authority, violated the First Amendment, and retaliated against Harvard for defending its institutional independence.
The May 19 cut is the latest salvo that the administration has launched against Harvard. After Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 issued a stern rebuke of the Trump administration’s demands in April, the White House responded with threats to strip Harvard’s tax-exempt status, slash research funding, and impose punitive visa restrictions on international students. And Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced earlier this month that Harvard would no longer be eligible to receive federal grants. Since the first funding cut, which focused squarely on campus antisemitism, the $450 million and $60 million cuts have also expanded the scope of the criticism to emphasize claims of racial dis-
crimination as well. A letter announcing the $450 million cut cited allegations that Harvard and the Harvard Law Review discriminated against white people on campus. The Trump administration has consistently advocated for “merit-based” hiring and admissions — seemingly a demand for Harvard to scrub any consideration of race from its procedures — and launched an investigation into Harvard’s hiring practices that cited increased racial diversity among faculty as a cause for suspicion. HHS’ $60 million cut also comes just four days after Garber announced Harvard’s central administration would distribute cash from a $250 million fund for research projects affected by stopwork orders issued by the Trump administration. In a message to Harvard affiliates announcing the pool of funds, Garber acknowledged that Harvard could not “absorb the entire cost” of the funding cuts.
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The Trump administration froze another $450 million in federal grants and contracts to Harvard on May 13, citing the release of a report by Harvard’s task force on antisemitism. E MATTEO DIAZ — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
BY DHRUV T. PATEL AND GRACE E. YOON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
U.S. Government Will Cease Grants to Harvard
ANOTHER HIT. Harvard researchers cannot apply for new grant funding while the University is under investigation.
BY DHRUV T. PATEL AND GRACE E. YOON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Tthe move — a drastic escalation in an already intense standoff between Harvard and the White House — in a letter she posted to X early that evening.
In the three-page letter, McMahon alleged that Harvard had “engaged in a systemic pattern of violating federal law” — citing a flurry of decisions and Harvard affiliates who she accused of refusing to meaningfully address campus issues. She accused the University of flouting the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision overturning its use of racebased affirmative action in admissions.
McMahon’s letter read as a laundry list of Harvard scandals — and right-wing grievances. She cited a new introductory math course, deriding it as “an embarrassing ‘remedial math’ program”; former University President Claudine Gay’s resignation amid plagiarism allegations; and accusations that the Harvard Law Review discriminated against white authors.
“In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor,” she wrote. The letter comes after the Trump administration pulled $2.2 billion in grants and contracts two weeks ago in response to Garber’s
decision to defy the White House’s demands and as it reportedly mulled over another $1 billion cut.
“Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution, and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment, and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni,” McMahon wrote. “You have an approximately $53 Billion head start.”
The letter cited Harvard’s refusal of the Trump administration’s demands but did not explicitly lay out a path for the University to regain access to federal grants, stating only that “the Administration’s priorities have not changed.” But an Education Department official said Harvard would need to accept the Trump administration’s second — and more aggressive — set of demands for the grant freeze to be lifted.
A Harvard spokesperson slammed McMahon’s directive as retaliation for the University’s lawsuit against the White House last month, calling it the latest attempt to “impose unprecedented and improper control over Harvard University.”
“Harvard will also continue to defend against illegal govern-
ment overreach aimed at stifling research and innovation that make Americans safer and more secure,” the spokesperson wrote.
The demands include a “merit-based admissions” and hiring process, regular federal audits of Harvard’s programs, and compliance with the Department of Homeland Security.
The freeze will not affect federal financial aid like Pell Grant loans, according to the official.
Staff at the National Institutes of Health were instructed last month to pause grants to Harvard without providing any explanation — and McMahon’s Monday directive now extends that pause across all federal agencies that support research at Harvard. Harvard received $686 million from federal agencies in fiscal year 2024.
McMahon took aim at Harvard’s student body in her letter, writing, “Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country — and why is there so much HATE?” The Trump administration has asked Harvard to turn over records on international students’ participation in protests and to begin screening its international applicants for their political beliefs.
Harvard President Alan Garber To Take 25% Pay Cut
ulty and staff.
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 will take a voluntary 25 percent pay cut for fiscal year 2026 as the University stares down the Trump administration’s nearly $3 billion funding cut, according to Harvard spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain. Garber has notified other members of Harvard’s top brass of his decision, and several are making voluntary cuts of their own, according to Swain. It is unclear how large of cuts other administrators have committed to making.
While Garber’s salary for fiscal year 2025 has not yet been made public, Harvard presidents have historically earned upward of $1 million annually — meaning that a 25 percent pay cut could amount to a six-figure reduction. Fiscal year 2026 begins in July. Though largely symbolic amid the multibillion-dollar cuts, Garber’s pay cut is a gesture toward sharing in the financial strain that has so far fallen most heavily on fac-
Harvard has already taken a wave of cost-cutting measures as it braces for months, and potentially years, of financial strain. In March, Harvard hit pause on faculty and staff hiring, directing schools to curb discretionary spending, reassess capital projects, and halt new multi-year commitments. In April, Harvard told employees it would not award merit pay raises to faculty and non-union staff in fiscal year 2026. And earlier this week, Faculty of Arts and Sciences professors were instructed to develop contingency plans for how their departments would handle budget shortfalls — as administrators acknowledge they expect longterm financial fallout.
This is not the first time Garber has reduced his pay in the wake of challenges affecting Harvard. In 2020, as provost, he took a similar 25 percent cut in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Then-President Lawrence S. Bacow and several deans also accepted temporary reductions as Harvard confronted a projected $750 million revenue shortfall.
The pay cuts in Massachusetts Hall follow an independent effort from faculty across the University. More than 80 faculty members — from several schools and academic units — have pledged to donate 10 percent of their salaries for up to a year to support the University if it continues to resist the Trump administration.
Garber’s decision also mirrors similar moves from leaders of other schools. Brown University
President Christina H. Paxson announced last month that she — and two other senior administrators — would take a 10 percent salary cut in fiscal year 2026.
Paxson also announced that top Brown administrators would not be eligible for wage or performance-based raises and that “highly compensated” school leaders were “invited to participate in a voluntary salary freeze.”
But at Harvard, administrators have not been invited or encouraged to take cuts in their salaries, and Garber and other administrators who have taken a cut have done so voluntarily, according to Swain.
Garber’s decision comes as the standoff between Harvard and the White House shows little sign of easing. On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that it would cut another $450 million in federal funding from Harvard, expanding the scope of its campaign against Harvard to allege Harvard had failed to check race-based discrimination as well as antisemitism. And earlier this month, it pledged to no longer award any grants or contracts to the University.
Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, filed in April, remains in its early stages, with oral arguments not scheduled to begin until July 21 — a sign that the legal battle is likely to be drawn out for months.
The Monday letter also took an explicitly ideological tone, writing that Harvard had benefited from the American “free-market system you teach your students to despise.” McMahon also blasted Harvard for its association with prominent Democrats, including fellowships granted to former New York mayor Bill de Blasio and former Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot.
She also slammed Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 for contributing to Harvard’s “disastrous management.” She cited comments made earlier Monday by hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman — a vocal Harvard critic — who alleged that under Pritzker’s leadership, the Corporation had put Harvard in “not a good financial position.”
“If this is true, it is concerning evidence of Harvard’s disastrous mismanagement, indicating an urgent need for massive reform—not continued taxpayer investment,” she wrote.
She concluded her letter with a mockingly upbeat office sign-off: “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
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Former Harvard President Claudine Gay earned more than $1.3 million in 2023 — which spanned the end of her term as Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean and all six months of her short-lived presidency. Lawrence S. Bacow, who turned over the presidency to Gay in July 2023, earned $3.1 million in his last six months leading Harvard, mostly in the form of deferred compensation, which is paid out to presidents at the end of their tenure. Bacow’s pay for most of his term was in line with Gay’s; he previously earned $1.3 million in 2022. And Harvard Management Company CEO N.P. “Narv” Narvekar — the highest-earning employee across HMC and Harvard — earned $6.07 million in 2023, a slight drop from his $6.19 million payout in 2022, as the endowment recorded only a modest 2.9 percent return in fiscal year 2023. Narvekar previously saw a 6.9 percent pay cut during the 2022 calendar year after the endowment had its third-worst annual investment returns in the last 20 years.
The compensation, released as part of the University’s Form 990 tax filings for fiscal year 2024, is required annually by the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt entities. Salaries are reported for a calendar year.
Gay saw a 43 percent year-overyear increase in her salary as she transitioned from FAS dean to the presidency.
University President Alan M. Garber ’76, then Harvard’s provost, received $1.2 million during the same calendar year. The University’s 990 release comes just one day after it announced that Garber would take a voluntary 25 percent pay cut for fiscal year 2026 as Harvard faces the Trump administration’s nearly $3
Garber Condemns Grant Exclusion
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 reaffirmed in a Monday letter that the University would not bow to interference from the Trump administration — even as he suggested Harvard and the government “share common ground.”
In a three-page message addressed to United States Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who announced one week ago that the Trump administration would no longer issue any grants or contracts to Harvard, Garber defended Harvard’s record on antisemitism and doubled down on the University’s refusal to concede to what he called an unlawful attempt to shape its core values.
“Harvard’s efforts to achieve these goals are undermined and threatened by the federal government’s overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities and its continuing disregard of Harvard’s compliance with the law,” he wrote.
The Monday letter marks Garber’s first public response to McMahon’s announcement, which came on top of an $2.2 billion cut in federal funding that was announced last month. Harvard sued nine federal agencies over the initial cut, which it alleged was coercive and beyond federal authority.
McMahon claimed in her letter last week that Harvard had flouted the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on affirmative action and lowered its academic standards by offering introductory math courses and fellowships to prominent Democrats.
Garber’s response — which took a sober tone throughout, urging McMahon to recognize Harvard’s reforms and constitutional protections — struck a sharp contrast with McMahon’s mocking missive. He denied that Harvard had violated the law and described the latest cuts as “unfounded retaliation by the federal government.”
He seemed to walk a tightrope between rejecting the Trump administration’s threats as overreach, and as a danger to ground-breaking scientific research, while largely avoiding condemnation of the government’s stated goals.
“As your letter suggests, we share common ground,” Garber wrote. He began with a litany of goals he said he and McMahon shared: ending campus antisemitism, encouraging free speech, fostering diverse viewpoints on campus, and following the law.
Then he disputed McMahon’s allegations against Harvard almost point by point.
Garber rejected McMahon’s characterization of Harvard’s admission process for students, writing that the University was in full compliance with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling.
“We are sharpening our focus on individuals and their unique characteristics rather than their race,” he wrote. “Admission to any of Harvard’s schools is based on academic excellence and promise.” Garber also pushed back against McMahon’s allegation that Harvard’s hiring process for faculty involves quotas and screening for political ideology.
“We do not have quotas,” he wrote. “We hire people because of their individual accomplishments, promise, and creativity in their fields or areas of expertise.”
He advertised that Harvard’s hiring decisions do not consider diversity statements — a requirement that Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences ended only last June.
In response to criticism that international students were the driving force behind a rise in antisemitism and protests at Harvard, Garber strongly defended their place on campus.
“Our international students are vital members of our community,” he wrote, adding that Harvard is “aware of no evidence” suggesting students from abroad being more prone to misconduct than students from the U.S.
Garber ticked off a list of institutional efforts he said showed that Harvard was not standing still. He pointed to procedures announced last month that would allow him to centralize cross-school disciplinary cases under his purview; the release of the long-awaited final reports of the task forces on antisemitism and anti-Arab bias after what he called an “extraordinarily painful year” on campus; and recent investments in expanding the study of Judaism on campus. But Garber did not frame the changes as a response to the Trump administration’s demands — even as some, like disciplinary centralization, closely mirrored measures pushed by federal officials. Instead, he described them as “needed reforms.”
The letter did not mention Harvard’s decision to rename its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging — nor its cancelation of support for affinity graduation celebrations, seemingly in response to the Education Department’s February claim that such celebrations constitute illegal racial discrimination. Garber did highlight changes to Harvard’s leadership since he took office in January 2024 — including the appointment of John F. Manning ’22 as provost, new deans for four schools, and changes in the Harvard Corporation’s membership. Almost all the changes happened prior to the federal government’s demands, which asked Harvard to appoint leaders who will help roll out its agenda. Garber’s letter contested McMahon’s allegation that Harvard was a partisan institution. McMahon had repeated calls for Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81, whom she called a “Democrat operative,” to resign her seat leading the University.
“It is neither Republican nor Democratic,” Garber wrote. “It is not an arm of any other political party or movement. Nor will it ever be.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the freeze in a letter. CAM E. KETTLES— CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
BY AVANI B. RAI AND SAKETH SUNDAR CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
BY DHRUV T. PATEL AND GRACE E. YOON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Garber Calls on Alumni To Back Harvard
DONATIONS. The president asked alumni to provide financial and political support for Harvard.
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 unveiled a new Presidential Priorities Fund in a May 19 email and called on alumni and donors to throw their financial and political support behind the University as it tackles multibillion dollar cuts to research funding.
In the email, Garber asked the Harvard community to “stay informed,” “advocate for Harvard and higher education,” and contribute to the newly established fund, which will provide his office with
“flexible support” for the University to sustain research and teaching.
“The institution entrusted to us now faces challenges unlike any others in our long history,” Garber wrote.
On the night of May 19, hours after Garber sent his call for support, the Department of Health and Human Services slashed an additional $60 million in multi-year grants to Harvard — on top of more than $2.6 billion in existing cuts. Garber’s push for donations is just one part of the University’s strategy in a protracted stalemate with the Trump administration, which has issued several sweeping cuts to federal research support in response to the University’s defiance of the administration’s demands.
Harvard is suing 11 federal agencies involved in the cuts, alleging that the demands tied to the fund-
ing are unconstitutional and jeopardize the University’s independence.
The new Presidential Priorities Fund and the Presidential Fund for Research will allow Garber’s office to address “pressing needs” and shortfalls to projects resulting from the funding cuts, according to the Harvard Alumni Association website.
The University also emphasized the importance of supporting Harvard with discretionary funding, both to the presidential funds and individual school deans. This discretionary power, Garber wrote, would afford Harvard the flexibility “to meet emerging needs across the University.”
On May 15, hundreds of Harvard researchers received termination notices for federally funded research projects, as most of Harvard’s grants were cut, hitting scien-
tific research especially hard.
“I am grateful to everyone who stands with Harvard as we continue to pursue our mission, drive progress, and serve the public good,” Garber wrote. “Now is the time to speak up and lend your support to institutions that have contributed so much to our nation and our world.”
Alumni and donors were also encouraged to contact elected officials and share personal stories of Harvard’s impact and advocate for the role of higher education “as an engine of American progress and a force for good in people’s lives.”
While Garber encouraged alumni to give to their respective schools, he underscored the urgency of broader, unrestricted support. Fundraising efforts have also begun at several individual schools. Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health —
among the schools hit hardest by the White House’s cuts to health research funding — are actively asking for donations through social media and alumni emails.
“Your support of Harvard Chan School matters now, more than ever,” the caption accompanying the post on HSPH’s official Instagram reads.
Researchers have been the face of Harvard’s publicity campaign, appearing in videos or sharing statements on Harvard’s social media accounts highlighting their work jeopardized by recent cuts.
HSPH Dean Andrea Baccarelli, in an email to alumni on Friday, requested donations and shared a “community toolkit” with key numbers and frequently asked questions to help alumni understand and communicate the scope of the impact. The toolkit website outlines the number of grants cut and the
potential effects of further federal actions such as an endowment tax. The federal government terminated around 350 research grants to
“Taxpayers
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Harvard Allocates $250M From Central Budget for Research FAS Adds New Funding Program For Interrupted Research
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced May 14 that the University will allocate $250 million in funding over the next year to support research impacted by the Trump administration’s freeze on nearly $3 billion in grants and contracts. In a message to University affiliates, Garber and Harvard Provost John F. Manning ’82 wrote that the funding — which will supplement the more than $500 million the University already allocates to research support — would help sustain “critical research activity for a transitional period” and pledged continued support for faculty, postdocs, students, and staff affected by the cuts.
“We understand the uncertainty that these times have brought and the burden our community faces,” Garber and Manning wrote. “We are here to support you.” But they acknowledged that Harvard would not be able to fully absorb the cost of the suspended or canceled federal awards, warning that the funding shortfall could disrupt long-running projects, delay scientific progress, and force unpopular decisions across Harvard’s schools.
“While there will undoubtedly be difficult decisions and sacrifices ahead, we know that, together, we will chart a path forward to sustain and advance Harvard’s vital research mission,” Garber and Manning wrote.
They wrote that they had tasked deans and academic leaders across Harvard’s schools with making “informed, prudent” decisions to adapt their research operations to what he described as “a changing funding environment.” While no research projects have been shut down internally, several of Harvard’s schools have spent the last few months reckoning with the gravity of the funding crisis. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, his cuts to scientific funding — including the widespread terminations of grants with
keywords on subjects like race, gender, and Covid-19 — have hurt Harvard’s bottom line.
In April, Harvard Medical School leadership told employees to prepare for staff reductions and program cuts following the Trump administration’s first $2.2 billion funding cut. One day after, the Harvard Public School of Health announced that it had already begun laying off staff and making targeted cuts to its departmental budget.
Garber and Manning wrote in their May 14 email that the $250 million fund would come from funding allocated to Harvard’s central administration, which includes the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost.
They also emphasized that while many of the Trump administration’s recent actions — including a $450 million cut on May 13 — have been aimed directly at Harvard, the White House was engaging in a nationwide campaign to ax research spending.
“Although these actions were specifically targeted at Harvard, they are part of a broader campaign to revoke scientific research funding,” Garber and Manning wrote, citing terminations of grants at other institutions and proposed cuts to funding for the National Institutes of Health.
“The impact of such steps on the nation’s scientific research enterprise could be severe and lasting,” they added.
Garber and Manning extolled the national significance of Harvard’s research at several points in his message, citing its role in driving “pathbreaking scientific discov-
eries, innovations, and advances” — a refrain consistent with Harvard’s public messaging and arguments in its ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration.
Garber and Manning’s announcement marks the most substantial budgetary step the University has taken to mitigate the impact of the freeze.
The $250 million pledge represents only a small fraction of the frozen federal funding, but it appears aimed at buying Harvard time — keeping essential research projects afloat while schools and principal investigators pursue new funding pathways. In his message, Garber promised support in helping researchers identify alternative funding sources, though he did not detail what options Harvard might pursue. Many researchers say private support will not be enough.
In fiscal year 2024, Harvard received $684 million in awards from the federal government — 10 percent of its total operating budget and more than twice what it received in non-federal sponsored funding.
The move comes as Harvard prepares for what will likely turn into a months-long or even yearslong standoff with the Trump administration. Oral arguments in Harvard’s lawsuit challenging the funding freeze are not set to begin until July 21 — and with Harvard opting not to seek a preliminary injunction when it filed its lawsuit in April, no canceled or suspended grants are likely to be reinstated in the meantime.
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced a new program to fund senior and tenure-track FAS professors whose grants have been terminated by the Trump administration in a May 16 message.
The initiative, called the Research Continuity Funding program, will begin funding 80 percent of the operating expenses previously covered by terminated grants once faculty have exhausted their alternative funding to 10 percent of their initial value. The program will last through June 30, 2026, at which point the FAS will evaluate whether to extend it for another year.
“Over the next year, we must adapt to a new world where our sources of research funding will need to change, but our commitments to academic excellence and high-impact scientific discovery will not,” Hoekstra wrote in the message.
FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm stressed that the new funding program — recommended to Hoekstra by the recently established Research Continuity Committee — was not a long-term solution, writing in a statement that the “FAS does not have the financial resources to cover all federally funded research indefinitely.”
The new program draws from “substantial” FAS funds, as well as the $250 million funding pool announced by University President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced Wednesday for supporting research affected by the Trump administration’s freeze on nearly $3 billion in federal funding.
Following Garber’s May 14 announcement, the University issued guidance on the new funding, instructing private investigators to pause capital purchases, limit non-personnel spending, and pause any new hiring funded through affected grants.
And in a Thursday email, Harvard School of Public Health Dean
Andrea A. Baccarelli praised the new funding pool as “critical” to work at HSPH, which has been the most impacted by the funding cuts out of all the University’s schools. But Baccarelli also echoed Chisholm’s warning that the pool is not a long-term fix.
“The funding from the University cannot be used to maintain the status quo, because our partnership with the federal government—a partnership that has been foundational to our research mission for eight decades—has shifted dramatically,” Baccarelli wrote.
In her email, Hoekstra wrote that the FAS would fund research activities backed by terminated grants through June 30, but reiterated the University-wide guidance to hold back on large purchases and new hires and said that primary investigators should draw primarily from external sources starting July 1. Once their funding dries up, she wrote, they could then turn to RCC funding.
Hoekstra also announced several additional initiatives aimed at supporting faculty research and graduate students in the FAS. She wrote that she would expand the annual allocation made through the Dean’s Competitive Fund for Promising Scholarship — a targeted program that provides bridge and seed funding — from $4 million to $8 million and prioritize
wrote. Tenure-track faculty who do not have dean’s ninths available but have budgeted for a supplemental salary paid with grants will also be eligible for dean’s ninths. Hoekstra also announced that the FAS would cover the tuition and stipends for graduate students in FAS programs funded through recently terminated federal grants, in accordance with their financial aid offers.
The new funding measures come amid a flurry of efforts to reduce the FAS’ expenses and prepare for steeper budget cuts ahead. Earlier this week, Hoekstra asked faculty to develop contingency plans in case of center and departmental budget shortfalls. The FAS has also halted fulltime staff hiring, announced it would keep spending flat for fiscal year 2026, and paused all “non-essential capital projects and spending.”
In her Friday email, Hoekstra outlined next steps for the FAS, including mobilizing philanthropic and corporate support and arranging opportunities for faculty to learn how to diversify their research funding portfolios.
“Nothing about this time is easy. But, through the contributions of many, we are forging a path forward together,” Hoekstra wrote.
FAS Professors Told To Prepare Contingency Plans For Shortfalls
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences professors were instructed to develop contingency plans for center and departmental spending budget shortfalls, according to five professors informed at two separate department meetings this week. Department heads in the Social Science division were specifically asked to anticipate how they would respond to a 20 percent shortfall in emails and in a meeting led by interim Dean of Social Science David M. Cutler ’87. Centers and departments
across the entire FAS were instructed to consider how downsizing their physical footprint, including the number of offices they use, could help reduce costs during their budget planning exercises.
“The FAS is adapting to this new world in part through contingency planning, studying what changes would be considered under different potential scenarios,” FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm wrote in a statement. “Contingencies are not necessarily implemented, and we hope they will not need to be.” The plans are the latest steps taken by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to tighten its belt amid the Trump administration’s at-
tacks on Harvard’s federal funding. The FAS has already announced it would keep spending flat for fiscal year 2026 and pause “non-essential capital projects and spending.”
The school has also halted fulltime staff hiring.
At a faculty meeting last week, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra warned faculty of long-term changes to funding, saying that “these federal actions have set in motion changes that will not be undone, at least not in the foreseeable future.”
“The federal funding landscape is fundamentally different today than it was just a few months ago,” she said. The threats to Harvard’s bud-
get have grown increasingly grave in recent weeks. The Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in grants, before slashing $450 million in funding on Tuesday and announcing last week that it would disqualify Harvard from future federal grants.
The University is suing the administration over what it argues is an unconstitutional affront to its independence, but administrators have acknowledged that a win in court would not mark the end to Harvard’s troubles.
“While Harvard is challenging the funding freeze in court, we can’t assume that resolution will be reached quickly, or, even if Harvard prevails, that the funds will be returned in full,” Hoekstra said
at last week’s faculty meeting. The guidance to the FAS follows similar moves at Princeton University, where administrators asked all departments and units to prepare separate contingency plans for 5 and 10 percent “permanent” budget cuts, according to The Daily Princetonian. Princeton was targeted for $210 million in grant cuts last month.
At May’s faculty meeting, Hoekstra discussed three recently appointed groups tasked with assessing the FAS’ response to the Trump administration’s attacks on its funding. One of the groups, the Task Force on Workforce Planning, is analyzing administrative staffing across the division and will make recommendations, po-
tentially including staff reorganizations and reductions. Hoekstra also announced that she had relaunched the Resources Committee, which will provide her with guidance on how to navigate the national financial landscape. The committee last convened under former FAS Dean Michael D. Smith, who led the faculty during the 2008 financial crisis. “These efforts will not be easy. Nothing about the current time is easy. The issues facing Harvard, and higher education as a whole, are as profound as any time in our nation’s history,” Hoekstra said at the meeting.
william.mao@thecrimson.com
BY
The office of Harvard President Alan M. Garber ‘76 is located in Massachusetts Hall. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra speaks at Harvard’s 2024 Commencement ceremony. ADDISON Y. LIU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
BY WILLIAM C. MAO AND VERONICA H. PAULUS CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Students Plan Affinity Celebrations Solo
GRADUATION. After the University revoked funding and space for affinity celebrations, some groups will host unofficial gatherings.
At least six Harvard affinity groups made plans to host unofficial celebrations for students graduating this week following the University’s decision to revoke funding and space for the annual traditions.
With only a month of notice, several student and alumni groups are scrambling to fundraise to provide graduating seniors with Commencement stoles and venue spaces for celebrations after an unsigned email from the University announced the change on April 29.
The Department of Education had explicitly demanded in March that Harvard end affinity graduation celebrations based on race or face additional funding threats — though all future federal funding is currently frozen. The University did not explain the decision in their email, and spokespeople repeatedly declined to comment on the motivation. The affinity celebration cancelation was announced hours after Harvard’s Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging was renamed to “Community and Campus Life.”
Out of the 10 affinity celebrations that took place last year, six are set to return despite the new policy — including events to honor Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+, and Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Desi graduates, as well as for veterans and people with disabilities, though they are no longer University-sponsored.
Athena Lao ’12, president of the Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance, said the group raised more than $10,000 to host a celebration off campus and provide
stoles for graduates to wear as they receive their diplomas.
“It’s really been a true student alumni collaborative effort,” Lao said. “They created the website, they looked at the venues, they have been sharing the information with their fellow students across all 13 schools.”
The Veteran Student Society is also raising money for a ceremony event for veterans graduating next week, a task Society president Michael H. Lupia said he had expected before the announcement after posing questions to the EDIB Office and receiving what he called “strange” answers.
“They were always cagey,” Lupia said. “It felt like they knew something was happening.”
Lupia said that after the announcement, the VSS was able to fundraise enough money within two or three days to host their own ceremony.
Other Harvard organizations, including Concilio Latino, a University-wide organization for all Latino affinity groups at Harvard, the Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus, and the Harvard Black Alumni Society have also circulated information for non-University sponsored Commencement celebrations.
The University-wide Black Graduation Celebration hosted by HBAS is set to feature speeches from students, as well as a keynote address by Nikole Hannah Jones, who created the 1619 Project, and Harvard Kennedy School Professor Cornell William Brooks, who served as the former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
While HBAS announced their event would take place in a conference space near campus, other groups have refrained from announcing the location of their celebration.
In a document circulating on House email lists with information about plans for Lavender Graduation — an LGBTQ+ Commencement celebration — event organizers wrote that they were “limiting public details about the location of the event” because of safety concerns.
HGSC President Joseph J. Barretto ’97 wrote in a May 9 email soliciting donations for Lavender Graduation that with the University’s decision to suspend support for affinity celebrations, “LGBTQ graduates are left abandoned,” according to the document.
“We are launching a fundraising drive to provide LGBTQ Harvard graduates with a Lavender Graduation worthy of their ideals and aspirations,” he added.
Concilio Latino has also not published information about their event’s location, but Abbeny B. Solis ’25, an organizer with the group,
said it was because they were still in the planning stage.
“We weren’t involved previously in the planning, and so now we have to make up that planning and all those costs, which include venues, stoles, just different decorations,” Solis said. “All the little logistical things that we again, weren’t a part of before, we just have to now consider.”
HBAS declined to comment for this piece. Organizers for HGSC did not reply to requests for comment.
Not every celebration from last year is returning in the same form, however.
Committee Co-Chair for First Generation Harvard Alumni Tori Simeoni ’10 said that rather than a celebration, the group was fundraising to provide first-generation and low-income students with graduation sashes.
“This year there’ll be no ceremony, but at least our hope is that
we could provide students with the stole that they could wear,” Simeoni said. “Something to have as a tangible symbol of their perseverance and their accomplishment, really a way to visibly celebrate their unique journey during Commencement.”
The Harvard University Native American Program also informed students they would not be hosting an Indigenous Graduation Ceremony this year, according to Kylie L. Hunts-in-Winter ’25.
Hunts-in-Winter said that in the absence of a ceremony, graduating seniors would still receive a traditional blanket.
She also wrote that students who led an independent initiative to provide Indigenous students with stoles had surpassed their donation goal “largely thanks to donations from my family and friends” and other students’ connections.
“Originally we were only able to get 19 stoles for those who filled out our form but now we have enough to get stoles for every indigenous graduate,” Hunts-in-Winter wrote. Though FGHA and HUNAP decided to cancel their celebrations because of the University’s decision to withdraw support, former Harvard Hillel President Jacob M. Miller ’25 said that Harvard’s Jewish affinity groups decided against hosting one even before Harvard announced their new policy.
“I spoke with a lot of students, and there were many people who weren’t so interested in an official ceremony the same way there was last year,” Miller said. “So we decided to have a program that looked very different.” Rather than an official ceremony with long speeches, Miller said the event would be more like a “happy hour.”
“There’s going to be food and drinks, and it’s just kind of an opportunity for people to celebrate this milestone,” he said.
samuel.church@thecrimson.com cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com
Students Face Name Change Challenges With Harvard’s Directories
BY ANNABEL
When students swipe into Harvard’s upperclassman dining halls, their names are covered with cardboard or paper taped to the ID scanners — a precaution taken to hide the legal names of transgender students still programmed to appear on the displays. Behind the temporary fix is a long-standing problem in at least two of Harvard’s central databases: they do not remove legal names for students who use preferred names instead, whether because of personal preference or gender identity. Harvard mailing addresses, emails from administrators, and dining hall scanners all default to using students’ legal names and are not updated when students change their names in my.harvard, the University’s central administrative site.
The Harvard Alumni Directory allows affiliates to add a nickname to appear in quotes next to their legal name, but provides no option on the website to remove a name.
Harvard Trans+ Community Celebration co-director E. Matteo Diaz ’27 said the directory discrepancies present a serious issue for transgender students, many of whom do not use or identify with their legal name.
“Having a legal name that doesn’t reflect your identity pop up can be a really discomforting, distressing experience — something that’s difficult and can make you feel kind of at odds with your environment, with people around you,” said Diaz, also a Crimson Editorial editor and Diversity and Inclusivity Chair. Students are asked at the beginning of each semester to verify their preferred name in my.harvard, and can change their name in the system at any time. But when preferred name changes were made mid-semester, students said there was a weeks-long delay before some Harvard systems began reflecting the change, while others simply never did.
Madison Codding ’27, a transgender student who changed her preferred name in the middle of the spring semester, said her name
on Canvas was updated more than two weeks after she entered it into my.harvard.
Even after being told by her academic advisor that “the back end of Harvard’s servers” had been updated with her new name, Codding said “there are still a couple significant holdouts,” including the dining hall scanners.
She added that changing a Harvard email to reflect a new name is a “pretty intensive process.”
“The official Harvard email saying my dead name — I’m not really cool with,” Codding said. “That kind of sucks.”
According to College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo, students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences can change their name at any time with the Registrar’s Office, but changes made after HUDS and other Harvard offices pull names from the system are not reflected.
“The old name would appear,” Palumbo wrote.
‘A Technical Issue’
In Harvard’s dining halls, trans students’ dead names appeared on screens every time they swiped their ID cards until the scanners were covered earlier this year.
“It’s not a great experience to have your dead name coming up every time you have to swipe in and do a very basic function of life on campus,” Diaz said.
Harvard University Dining Services began taping pieces of cardboard or paper over part of swipe machines that display student names at the beginning of the Fall 2024.
Four HUDS employees said the change was made to protect student privacy around gender identity.
One HUDS employee said the scanners were covered after a transgender student made a complaint in summer 2024. According to the employee, the student swiped into the dining hall surrounded by their group of friends, who learned their dead name from the scanner — leading the student to make a complaint.
Palumbo confirmed that the
change was made after a student raised a concern over the summer, and wrote that “it is a technical issue between the system where students reflect their preferred name and the HUDS system for processing board plan usage.”
“We are actively working together on a solution,” Palumbo added.
The College’s nine river houses and Currier House started covering student names on dining hall scanners in the fall. As of Thursday, both Cabot House and Pforzheimer House had added covers as well. Annenberg is the only dining hall without covered scanners.
Though the University has not fixed the inconsistency yet, the temporary coverings were an effective temporary measure, Diaz said.
“Coming in this year and seeing HUDS having made that switch — it meant a lot to me,” Diaz said. “Even just seeing that small fix be made, it meant that there was someone thinking about it, and someone making the effort.”
But Diaz added that having preferred names registered in my.harvard also registered with the HUDS system automatically would be the “ideal scenario.”
The issue caught the attention of Harvard Undergraduate Association officials, who were also told administrators would work to find a solution. Former HUA Academic Team officer Matthew R. Tobin ’27 said he met with the Committee on Undergraduate Education, who said the HUDS issue was separate from the alumni directory.
“The fix seems like a very easy fix on Harvard’s end,” Tobin said. “Students already list their preferred names that’s already in the software, so it’s just making sure that data point is used when they’re pulling the students information rather than the data point listed immediately before it.”
‘Misgendered and Misnamed’ Harvard’s Alumni Directory, used by current students and alumni from all 12 schools as a networking platform, has even fewer options to update names.
While a student can remove the prefix “Mr.” or “Ms.” from their online profile and choose to add a nickname which is displayed in quotation marks, they cannot add preferred pronouns or remove their legal name from being displayed entirely through the website.
For alumni who change their names legally after getting married, there is a “Marital Status Change Request” form built into the profile editing page on the Harvard Alumni website. There is no equivalent system for trans students who change their names legally.
According to a HAA spokesperson, the Alumni Association will remove legal names and replace them with preferred names if a student emails the association and requests an update.
But the option is not advertised, and the differences between used and listed names has led both the alumni association and potential employers who reach out using the directory information to misgender or misname University affiliates.
Murphy E. King ’24, who founded Harvard Trans+ Community Celebration in 2022, said they are “misgendered and misnamed every single time” someone contacts them through the Alumni Directory.
“Once people know what your old name, your dead name, or your pronouns assigned at birth would have been, it’s a lot easier for them to misgender you, intentionally or unintentionally,” King said.
Having names mismatched either in initial outreach to employers, or from transcripts is an “additional flag” in the hiring process and a detriment to job opportunities, according to King.
“Over the course of six months of last year, I had significantly worse outcomes compared to peers with similar backgrounds and experiences,” King said.
Three transgender students who spoke to The Crimson said they faced extra confusion among employers when applying for summer opportunities with different names on documents — such as resumes and transcripts — and their email address or name.
“Applying for summer funding was kind of stressful,” Codding said. “It was definitely just an uncomfortable process to have my name be different things in different places for a while.”
Fable J. Perkins ’27, who is also transgender, said that when applying for an internship opportunity through Harvard and making it to the interview round, the University only shared his legal name with the host organization — leading Perkins to have to correct the employer upon initial outreach.
“It is still a correction that is at least uncomfortable to try to do that early in an application process,” Perkins said.
Palumbo wrote in a statement that the College is “deeply committed to cultivating a campus where all students are welcome and feel seen.”
“In all cases and with all students, we strive to improve our systems in service of a more inclusive environment, and we acknowledge the work still left to do. Every student belongs and we work to ensure our systems match our commitments,” he added.
Multiple students said they still receive email communications from the College — the FAS Registrar, the Alumni Association, and messages from House Mail Centers — which addressed them with a legal or dead name they no longer use.
Perkins said receiving those emails is a “jarring” experience.
“The fundamental thing is, none of this is hard,” King said. “We just don’t have the systems to support it, and nobody thinks it’s their problem.”
The HAA spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement that the HAA is “actively working to ensure that alumni records are accurate, up to date, and able to sync with other university information systems as appropriate.”
A Legendary Resort for Your Senses and Soul
Switchback through chaparral. Tai chi with the trees. Slip into a hammock. Follow your own singular star. At Rancho La Puerta, the day is yours. After hiking, yoga or kickboxing, a mountain sage massage is just the balm. Farm-to-table meals are served under convivial skies. Pleasure and wellbeing walk side by side up the mountain. F
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for over eighty-five years.
Senator Chris Van Hollen: Class of 2025, If Not You, Who?
BY CHRIS VAN HOLLEN
As Harvard graduates, you have the tools to succeed in many pursuits. But following a frictionless path to individual success does not necessarily lead to a better world. Today, we face many challenges: economic inequality, climate chaos, brutal conflicts and wars, technological disruption, and a polarizing, poisonous political climate. And you, our next generation of leaders, have a say in how we respond to those challenges. You have a voice — but only if you use it.
I spent many of my early years overseas, including in India, where I was inspired by the example left by Mahatma Gandhi, who showed the power of confronting injustice in nonviolent ways — what John Lewis would later call “good trouble.” Gandhi placed great weight on the ability of individual action to resist injustice and create change. At this moment of peril, when we are facing threats to our constitutional rights of due process and freedom of speech, I believe we each have a duty to act. If not you, who? That’s why, in April, I flew to El Salvador to seek a meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was wrongfully abducted and deport-
ed to a notorious prison without due process. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the Trump Administration must “facilitate” his return, and his case highlights the reality that if one person’s rights are denied, everyone’s rights are threatened. Many political pundits argued that we should not highlight this form of injustice because it was a “losing issue.” If I had listened to them, I would have never taken the trip. But, in my view, it is never wrong to defend the Constitution. This is not about vouching for any one man, but for his rights. The lesson here: be willing to take risks to do the right thing even when others are giving you a million reasons why you should keep your head down and not speak up. Do not put your finger to the wind to see which way it seems to be blowing. Instead, put your hand up when you think core values are at stake.
America’s core values, including the right to free speech, free assembly, and academic freedom are under threat everywhere. The Trump Administration has snatched up students for expressing their First Amendment rights and sent them to detention centers. I have been heartened to see students standing up for the free speech rights of their peers, even when they may not all agree with the speech itself. And, as a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School, I am proud that the University is standing up to the President’s illegal bullying through its lawsuits. We must all stand in solidarity with the universities, law firms, and institutions that are resisting the assaults on their rights. At the same time, we must call out those institutions that are caving into political extortion — the capitulation will only feed the appetite of this lawless president. Hedging and equivocating in the face of authoritarianism will beat a fast path to tyranny.
The voices of students and activists have shaped some of the most important movements for change
Hold the World to Harvard’s Standards
BY J. SELLERS HILL
At Commencement today, we will surely hear a variety of adjectives — brilliant, accomplished, and passionate — to describe our class. One that won’t come up, despite administrators’ likely opinions, is demanding.
But in many ways, my most meaningful experiences at Harvard were defined by student demands. Reporting for The Crimson, I heard criticisms of every facet of campus life — from the University’s mental health care to its tailgate restrictions — and chronicled the activism that rocked our campus in the wake of October 7th.
As The Crimson’s president, I oversaw an opinion section that has criticized everything from the school’s breakfast menu and air conditioning to its foreign policy. And as a program marshal on our Class Committee, I’ve certainly felt the pressure of meeting the expectations of my peers.
That Harvard students have high standards is unremarkable: Anyone who has visited Sidechat knows just how much we love to complain. But as we exit through Harvard’s gates this morning, I can’t help but struggle to square this sense of empowerment on our campus with the hopelessness I, and many of my peers, feel about the wider world.
In The Crimson’s survey of the senior class this year, only 5 percent of respondents said they felt that our country was on the right track. But how many of us will write letters to our Congressional representatives as readily as we emailed our deans?
It’s worth examining why we feel entitled to speak up on campus in the first place, for which I often hear three primary justifications: The first has to do with excellence. Students expect the best from Harvard, a university with a superlative reputation and a war chest to match. Accordingly, we figure it should use its wealth and prestige to advocate for the greater good and lead
the field in everything from its research to its facilities.
Second, many students and their families pay the price of a home to attend this school for four years; understandably, they expect to see that value reflected in their campus experience. It’s fair enough that students question the quality of breakfast offerings after running the math on their meal plans.
Finally, we students believe — and are encouraged to believe — that we have the power to sway the University’s decision making. Surveys bombard our email inboxes; protests and letter-writing campaigns provoke statements and meetings with administrators; outcry even necessitated that a tired College administrator explain to The Crimson why the College couldn’t afford Ice Spice for Crimson Jam. Indeed, with encouraging frequency, student demands prompt significant changes.
So why, then, is there such dissonance between our high expectations on campus and sour outlook beyond? Certainly, the United States has more than enough political and economic power to be held to the same standard of excellence and leadership.
To me, it seems to be an issue of power: Many of us believe that our voices alone will not be sufficient to force change, or that there are others better equipped to make the case.
Yes, speaking out beyond the Yard can feel futile even in normal circumstances. Moreover, the Trump administration’s attacks on basic rights — including assaults on academic freedom and threats to free speech — have had their intended chilling effect on many who might otherwise offer resistance, from our non-citizen peers to whiteshoe law firms.
The immense cost of political dissent in the Trump era is embodied on our own campus, with federal sanctions poised to decimate Harvard’s resources — not to mention nullify any progress that student demands have achieved over the preceding decades. Fortunately, as we trade tuition for taxes, there
remain many examples that should inspire us to continue to speak out and demand the best.
Personally, I find solace in our alma mater’s courageous, lonesome stand and the excitement it has engendered; the policy rollbacks by the Trump administration that have already occurred after public outcry became too great; our nation’s great legacy of advocacy and civil disobedience; and the title of “citizen leaders” that will surely be invoked from the podium today.
in our country. As an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, I participated in the student-led campaign to pressure the college to divest from the then-apartheid regime in South Africa. At first, the Board of Managers took only incremental steps; they devised all sorts of excuses as to why divestment would be imprudent. But the students never gave up and, after many years, Swarthmore fully divested. Years later, as a staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I applauded as Democratic and Republican senators joined together to pass the law — and then override President Reagan’s veto — to impose sanctions on the South African apartheid regime. That congressional action would never have happened but for the students, activists, and “outside agitators” who made the ripples that grew into waves that crashed down on Congress to affect change. And that has been the origin story for many of the laws that have advanced justice, equality, and democracy in America. Change begins when individuals question the prevailing wisdom and take action to challenge the status quo. As Henry
We do have this power, and we have practice using it. We spent four years demanding that our fair Harvard be its best self, even when speaking felt hardest. Now that demands are coming from outside the house, it’s time to defend it — and to hold the country to the same uncompromising standards.
Harvard Defended You. Now It’s Your Turn
BY RANDALL L. KENNEDY
First: Congratulations upon your graduation! Completing the requirements for a College degree is an exacting exercise in calm times. Your journey has been marked by non-stop tumult. You began college in the anxious aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. You greeted three University presidents during your tenure here. You witnessed one of the most bitter, volatile, and consequential struggles in American history for control of the White House. The disruptions and antagonisms that erupted in the aftermath of October 7th rivalled in intensity those that roiled the campus during the 1960s. Then, in your final semester, the federal government launched an unprecedented attack on Harvard, charging it with violations of federal anti-discrimination law, depriving it of funding, and demanding that the University submit to various ideological dictates. You are thus graduating at a momentous juncture in Harvard’s storied history. In the spring of 2025, all of higher education awaited Harvard’s response. Many observers were gripped by trepidation. I know that I was. After all,
some venerable institutions had buckled in the face of the Trump Administration’s extortionate demands upon universities and law firms. Intimidated, they had waived their moral and legal rights, acceding to “deals” that sacrificed their integrity. Harvard responded differently.
On April 14, 2025, in an action that will long be celebrated by proponents of academic freedom and due process, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 informed the Trump administration that the University declined to submit to the government’s ultimatum. In a Churchillian move, Garber declared: “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” Elaborating, he maintained that no government, irrespective of party, should control extra-legally what or how private universities can teach or structure their intellectual, moral, and scholarly environments.
The position that he resolutely adopted has rightly been applauded by many people of widely varying political complexions. “Harvard’s stand might not make it the constitutional hero that we want,” wrote conservative columnist and Harvard Law School graduate David French, “but it is the constitutional hero we need.”
You, the Harvard Class of 2025, should feel proud of being part of a university that is standing up for essential values in difficult — indeed, foreboding — circumstances. Harvard is deficient in various ways to be sure. But when the fate of its place as a leading, autonomous, free institution was on the line, its leaders rose to the occasion.
They did so not only with the future of Harvard in mind. They acted, too, in full recognition of this University’s outsized influence on higher education, and, indeed, American culture at large. They acted knowing that if Harvard capitulated to the government’s grotesque encroachment, other institutions would quickly follow suit. They acted on behalf of values that our community at its best exemplifies.
Our leadership was able to do the right thing only because of a hopeful confidence that key sectors of our community — faculty, students, and alumni — would rally to Harvard’s defense. Keep that in mind as you transition to a different phase in your affiliation with the University. I urge you to take steps to stay abreast of developments so that you can be aware of ongoing and new challenges and responses to them. I urge you to communicate your impressions to Univer -
sity leaders. You are smart, knowledgeable, capable, creative, and resourceful. Your counsel is valuable. Finally, I urge you to support the University in any way that you can, including financially. We must be candid and realistic at this all too perilous moment. Bravery, though essential, is insufficient. Strength is crucial. Effective resistance to the siege we face will require, among other things, internally generated financing to substitute, at least temporarily, for the funding that the government has wrongly suspended.
University leadership would be unable to contest governmental tyranny without the financial wherewithal supplied over a long period of time by admirers, allies, and alumni — people like you who have been tremendously benefitted by the knowledge and know-how that Harvard bequeaths to the world. Do what you can to assist in this trying moment. Congratulations again! I look forward to learning about your adventures and contributions in the months, years, and decades ahead.
–Randall L. Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School.
FRANK S. ZHOU — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
PAVAN V. THAKKAR — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
The Revolution at Harvard is More Fundamental Than You Realize
BY TOMMY BARONE
Since I entered Harvard with the Class of 2025, it has begun a transformation far more fundamental than many people grasp.
Post-October 7th, the University has broken with a long-standing practice against meaningfully disciplining student protesters; forsworn most statements on social and political issues; pushed for more open and critical intellectual engagement; cracked down on programs and centers seen as excessively progressive; tightened grading and attendance policies to bolster academic rigor; and reoriented its diversity and inclusion office toward “community and campus life.”
Many have understood these changes as a response to pro-Palestine protest and the Republican assault on higher education, and that’s surely part of the story. But having led The Crimson’s opinion section through many of these developments, completed a senior thesis about the history of Harvard College since 1970, and spoken privately with many of the University’s most influential faculty and administrators, I write to say that a sweeping reevaluation is underway at Harvard today predominantly because the University’s leaders believe in it.
The decades-long evolution of the status quo we’re now departing makes the scope and the direction of this transformation clearer — and provides a timely reminder that even the worst excesses of the College today sprung from noble ideals with enduring value.
At the beginning of the 1900s, residential colleges stood in loco parentis (“in the place of the parent”) with respect to their students. Universities acted like parents insofar as they sought to maintain order and moral propriety among students through dress codes, curfews, restrictions on relations between men and women, and the like.
These intrusive rules gradually came under fire from students, who desired greater freedom and privacy — to be treated more like adults — and at Harvard, after the protests of the ’60s, they went defunct. In most histories of American higher education, this is where the story ends: Universities drew back, students became adults, and other debates — from labor issues to the literary canon to campus
policing — moved to the fore.
My thesis contends that inattention to what replaced this paradigm has hampered our ability to fully understand the distinctive features of the modern university now at issue. The past 50 years have seen the formation of a new in loco parentis that is distinctively parental in a more modern mode — more compassionate, more supportive, more interested in students as unique and distinct individuals. The rise of this new model has made the social, emotional, and symbolic needs of students a central concern at Harvard College.
By examining thousands of archival articles from The Crimson, dozens of administrative reports, and miscellaneous other sources, I traced the emergence of this new in loco parentis in the context of three zones of undergraduate life: diversity and inclusion, curriculum, and mental health.
When it comes to diversity and inclusion, the University has spent the last two decades developing policy and infrastructure to better represent the distinct identities of minority students. Since 2000, Harvard has invested in diversifying the university’s portraits; renamed the position of House master to faculty dean; promulgated its first University-wide D&I policy; rewritten the alma mater; and begun issuing more vocal and empathetic statements on racial issues.
In the context of academics, the College sought to empower students to more freely choose their path. The last major curricular review, in the 2000s, reduced requirements and moved back concentration declaration while significantly expanding advising resources to better guide and support students.
Finally, mental illness, which figured as a relatively peripheral concern in the mid-’90s, became understood as a full-fledged crisis in the new millennium. In response, Harvard more than tripled its clinical psychotherapy resources and quietly undertook initiatives to improve students’ social lives and address alcohol and drug abuse.
Many of these changes may strike you as natural or obvious, but before they were made, they were anything but. Further, while these histories are particular, I believe similar stories have played out in many areas of the College — that it’s been remade by a new in loco parentis — and that what we are wit-
nessing today is an unprecedented attempt to retrench its furthest advances.
Reread the list of changes at the top of this piece.
Each substantially strives to reverse or qualify a practice developed to accommodate an understanding of students’ needs that emerged only recently. From personal conversations, I can say with confidence that many faculty and administrators now believe these practices to be too accommodating.
In some cases, I agree; in others, I don’t. My purpose here is not to evaluate these changes but rather to argue that they are neither unconnected nor mere ploys to placate the right. Quite the contrary, they have a shared logic that is sincerely affirmed by many important people at Harvard and poised to go much further in the years to come.
One thing almost everyone can agree on about Harvard is that it needs change. What, how much, and how fast are questions over which reasonable people can and will disagree. As that process unfolds, it would behoove us all to remember that these questions have a history.
BY JACOB M. MILLER
When I was first elected to The Crimson’s Editorial Board, I resented the institution. The Crimson had just published its editorial endorsing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel, and as I sat in my first editorial meetings, watching the Board’s chair lead the discussion with his Palestine Solidarity Committee sticker conspicuously placed on his laptop, I wondered just how long I’d last. Ultimately, I remained. In the following years I would again encounter personally upsetting opinions on the Board — but I would again decide to stay. Looking back on the past four years — during which I served as both Hillel President and Editorial Chair — I can say that the most formative, meaningful, and valuable experiences were the times I spoke with peers who disagreed with me. It was also those experiences that led to the greatest understanding and sympathy at a time when divisions consumed our campus. The dialogue was far from easy. But fighting for it was the most important thing I ever did at Harvard.
On Oct. 7, 2023, I was at Harvard Hillel when I began hearing details about Hamas’ rampage in southern Israel. I raced back to my Lowell bedroom and asked the maintenance staff to turn on my phone — it was a Jewish holiday on which phone use is forbidden — and text my brother in Israel to make sure he was alive.
Due to the holiday, he couldn’t respond for nearly a full 24 hours. As I anxiously awaited news about his fate, I learned 34 student groups had signed a statement attributing full responsibility to Israel for Hamas’ violent attacks. Beyond the fury this news provoked, I felt a deep sense of betrayal. My community had embraced a political stance that turned its back on brutal bloodshed. In the coming days, individual friends would text me to check in; these texts felt like a negligible consolation next to the dozens of student groups — ostensibly representing hundreds of my peers — who raised a middle finger to my pain and suffering. As Harvard Hillel President, I saw some of the most hateful and despicable posts on Sidechat and Instagram from the Harvard community in the following weeks, including one saying “Harvard Hillel is burning in hell.”
That semester was the most alienating period of my life. I coped with the pain by concentrating on my duties as Hillel President — a task that,
in those months, required 60- to 80-hour work weeks. I gave dozens of interviews, appeared on national television, and spoke with countless administrators. I compiled a dossier containing evidence of online antisemitism that I distributed to everyone from a New York Times reporter to the Harvard Corporation.
During that time, I wavered back and forth for weeks deciding whether to run for Editorial Chair, uncomfortable with the prospect of helming an institution whose stated positions I found troubling and occasionally offensive. Eventually, I ran. Little did I anticipate how formative chairing the Board would be, not despite — but because of — the meaningful differences that divided me from many peers.
A few months into my term as Editorial Chair, I read Franklin Foer’s cover story for The Atlantic, “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending.” The piece, which connects the resurgence of antisemitism to the rising tide of illiberalism on both ends of the American political spectrum, articulated a feeling that had been growing inside me: Engaging with diverse perspectives was not antithetical to my service at Hillel. On the contrary, it advanced a liberal order that had, for
It is easy to criticize the practices now under fire, and many deserve the criticism. It is harder, but perhaps more important, to recognize that those practices came into being because Harvard was once a colder, harsher, and more exclusive place. People of good will hoped to change that and largely succeeded but left new problems in their place. The truest thing I can write about Harvard is that I have loved it. It has made me smarter, better, truer, and happier. It has
generations, enabled Jewish flourishing in the United States. I began seeing my work differently: After feeling obligated to compartmentalize my identity as I edited pro-Palestine op-eds, I now took pride in curating an opinion section that represented the gamut of campus opinion. I was not “platforming” my opponents; my work laid the basis for a robust and healthy setting for discourse. The attempts to thwart these conversations — both on campus and across the country — were clear. Students embraced extreme politics: At one point, they chanted “Zionists not welcome here.” Another time, they called to boycott The Crimson in part for quoting a public speech made at their encampment — seemingly copying Donald Trump’s anti-media playbook. Also disturbing were the illiberal tendencies from the pro-Israel side. A truck paraded through campus intimidating students associated with the PSC statement, many advanced over-encompassing definitions of antisemitism to shut down pro-Palestine speech, and Jewish organizations became zealots for restrictions on protests — a seeming attempt to regulate speech with which they disagreed out of existence. As my term progressed, many of my Zionist friends were confused why I didn’t spike pro-Palestine op-eds. But a society in which we resort to tactics like these to counteract others’ ideas is a dangerous society — and one that hurts Jews in the long run. And yet, my year chairing the Editorial Board gave me hope. Some of Harvard’s most extreme activists — on both sides of the conflict — were the same people who respectfully listened to others’ perspectives at our meetings three times a week. I learned that my peers had a larger capacity for dialogue than Harvard’s administration, the national media, or even they themselves believed.
Today’s fraught politics makes dialogue difficult. Current political issues often involve aspects of our identities with significant implications for our lives. I understand the urge to respond to offensive ideas by seeking to silence them or deciding to personally disengage — I’ve felt this temptation acutely. But I urge us to resist that. Not because it’s easy, or because discourse will magically help us find common ground, or even because it will reveal the humanity in others. It’s because the alternatives are far worse. In an era in which partisan tensions are tangible, when entrenching in echo chambers is fashionable, and when political issues feel too personal to discuss, respectful dialogue is more needed than ever. Class of 2025, keep fighting for this discourse — no matter how difficult it becomes.
W E H A V E A P O M P
F O R E V E R Y
C I R C U M S T A N C E
S O M U C H T O C E L E B R A T E .
A L O T T O U N P A C K .
V i s i t C a m b r i d g e U S A . o r g f o r i t i n e r a r i e s a n d m o r e !
CARMEN.maquia
More than a century after her debut, Carmen remains a mirror held up to power and the danger of being desired.
This modern ballet reimagines her story and captures her timeless defiance in a new light. May 29 - June 1, 2025
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Fight Fiercely for Harvard Values
BY SHEILA S. JASANOFF
Last Commencement, op-ed writers in The Crimson commented on Harvard’s annus horribilis. But if last year was bad, this one is worse.
Never before have our graduating seniors faced a political climate so hostile to our alma mater. Today, we have a U.S. president who declares on social media that our University is a “joke,” a Secretary of Education who accuses Harvard of abandoning “any semblance of academic rigor,” and a Homeland Security Secretary who has tried to revoke Harvard’s permission to enroll international students, as if Harvard’s truth can be locked away behind nationalist laws.
Experienced voices are calling this a moment of existential crisis for Harvard and for American higher education. But for the Class of 2025 this crisis is also an opportunity: to fight fiercely for the values that Harvard has instilled in you, as it did in me when I matriculated here in the Class of 1964.
Between 1978 and 1998, my husband and I built our academic careers at Cornell, that most egalitarian of Ivy League universities. Early on, we found ourselves tagged with representing “Harvard values.” Those years forced me to reflect on what these values are that stamped me as a citizen of Harvard.
Returning to Harvard in 1998, I was able to test my intuitions from a new vantage point, as a professor at the Kennedy School. It was a delight to find that the values I remembered from the 1960s were still alive among my students in all their diversity.
The first is a thirst for excellence. And not only excellence as judged by external standards or only in academic pursuits — excellence at Harvard means wanting to realize the best that is within you.
In my undergraduates, I have seen this urge manifested across an extraordinary range of accomplishments, in scientific theory building and political savvy, athletics and acting, composition and musical performance, journalism and software design, and even in fashion modeling. So many of you have taken your raw talent and turned it into a superpower. That, to me, is a constant reminder that our academic culture is no joke. It remains rich in the borderless virtues of rigor, seriousness and discipline.
The second is an appetite for risk-taking. I see this each year in the undergraduates who sign up for my graduate seminars. They come from di -
verse cultures and disciplines but are united in their curiosity to explore a new field, even after discovering that my seminar assigns more readings than their other classes put together.
Equally inspiring are my thesis advisees, including four in this year’s graduating class: fearless in choosing topics that haven’t made their way into published scholarship, enterprising in boundary-crossing research, and excited about writing an essay ten times longer than any conventional term paper. The third is creativity. The Class of 2025 carried forward an initiative begun by their predecessors three years ago, building a new undergraduate fellows program in Science, Technology and Society, modeled on one we’ve had for years for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. These students saw a hole in Harvard’s teaching resources connecting what happens in the lab or the clinic to what happens in wider society. Unfazed, they developed a yearlong program in STS, reading and learning together seminar-style in
the fall and organizing events in the spring to showcase STS in action.
Recently minted STS undergraduate fellows are among Harvard’s best and brightest, winning numerous prestigious prizes and fellowships through their commitment to Harvard values. But it is their determination to chart new learning pathways through our sturdy old institution that brings me the greatest joy, and a sense that the future to be shaped by the Class of 2025 as a whole is brighter than the clouds gathered over our heads.
Speaking to students at Munich University in 1918, Max Weber cautioned that “nothing is gained by yearning and tarrying alone” and one must “set to work and meet the ‘demands of the day.’” This is what I would also say to everyone graduating now, at another inflection point in history. But what are the demands of today? We are living in a time of fear and regression, with people in power putting up walls and barriers against the free flow of ideas and knowledge.
But Harvard’s values of excellence, risk-taking, and creativity are timeless and borderless. They will outlast the regressive politics of this moment, so long as the bearers of these values are prepared to fight to keep the faith. When I think of what lies ahead for our seniors, I am reminded of a protest song composed in 1905 by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore: “Ekla Chalo Re,” or “Walk On Alone.” It ends with an extraordinary metaphor of resolve. If no one hears your call, the song urges, then walk on alone. If no one shelters you from night and storm, let the lightning set your rib cage on fire and become, yourself, a flame. May the fierceness of Tagore’s Bengali freedom fighter be with you as you go forward into life, aflame with Harvard’s eternal values.
–Sheila S. Jasanoff ’64 is the Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Welcome to Harvard. Everything is Fine. (Seriously.)
Let’s get one thing straight. The most unsafe I have ever felt as a student at Harvard University was on my second day of orien -
tation, when I was chased screaming across the Yard by an angry wild turkey.
That said, my comparable enjoyment of the years that followed might come as a surprise to The New York Times, which appears to be seconds from sending a flak jacket-wearing war
correspondent to cover Harvard’s 374th annual spring Commencement — to say nothing of governmental institutions that have targeted the University on the grounds of an alleged hostile atmosphere in idyllic Cambridge.
The events of the past four years, from Covid-19 lockdowns to presidential resignations, are hardly unique to Harvard. Yet our University has long cultivated a massive, generally unearned amount of space in the national popular imagination — an outsized attention that makes caricatures of students’ happy lives.
I’m here to tell you: the kids are alright.
The Crimson has never lacked for headlines, to be sure. As freshmen, we arrived to an empty campus regulated by strict Covid-cautious rules, and one newly promising to excavate Harvard’s legacies of anti-Black racism and slavery. No sooner had we learned to navigate course registration on my.harvard and the shuttle schedule than our collective campus life was jolted once more by the outbreak of protests against Israel’s wartime conduct in the Gaza Strip and by allegations of (and investigations into) antisemitism and Islamophobia, followed by high-profile leadership shakeups. As of late, campus stability is further threatened by the loss of federal research funding. A busy few years, huh?
This timeline, Passio GO! grievances excepting, could reasonably describe the undergraduate experience at any four-year accredited college in the country — yet Harvard persists in the headlines.
At time of writing, the New York Times has published over two dozen news articles, guest essays, and letters to the editor about Harvard in the last two weeks, an editorial prolificacy matched in its coverage of no other institution of higher education. A student encounters the power of her alma mater in her day-to-day life, in everything from the cultural saturation of “Legally Blonde” and “The Social Network,” to its use as a shorthand for intelligence. It is not only the substantial alumni network or institutional resources which open doors for a graduate, but the simple power of the name alone.
Harvard’s prominence is not accidental. Historically, Harvard leadership has embraced the University’s status as a representative for, and representation of, higher education. In 1958, as part of the postwar $100 million Program for Harvard College fundraising campaign, former University President Nathan M. Pusey, Class of 1928, wrangled a free hour-long radio broadcast from NBC to fundraise under the thin guise of promoting national postsecondary education.
“Not just the quality of American education but the strength of the American people is going to be second-rate,” warned fundraising chairman Alexander M. White, Class of 1925 — unless the
listener donated directly to the Program for Harvard College.
Well, an unbroken eight decades’ worth of Harvard leadership gleefully cultivating the University’s international prominence has come to collect.
Not only do students now bear the small, awkward inconvenience of a gynecological nurse asking for college-admissions advice for her son (true story; use your imagination). These days, an outsized media and national political fixation on Harvard has landed the school in the middle of countless lawsuits, congressional inquiries, revocations of government funding, and restrictions on the enrollment of international students.
We appear once more to be in crisis. There is A Situation On Campus.
I find all this catastrophizing both grating and untrue. For a graduating body of nearly 2,000 young people, Harvard is our beloved home. Here, its students binge-drink on Wednesday nights, enter into ill-advised situationships, and nap in hammocks on sunny afternoons. We are — wild poultry aside — safe and happy, content to enter into a sacred contract with our alma mater: to always coyly say that we went to school outside Boston, and if our VC startups make it off the ground, to toss the endowment a little walking-around money on reunion years. It is the outsiders to the University, not its students, who bring to campus their leery and libidinous fixations on our ostensible well-being. Driven by the breathless excitement of news cycles, at varying points the world has heroicized us as prodigious leaders of the future, victimized us as innocent minds brainwashed by an agenda-pushing faculty (or even, as victims of our hateful peers), and villainized us as radicals.
None of these characterizations are true to life, and frankly, any one interpretation gives this population of moderately intelligent twenty-two-year-olds vastly too much credit.
Recognizing that it is a big ask, I will make the following request of you, reader who picked up a copy of the Commencement edition in a newsstand — believe me over your own lying eyes. Mute the Apple News push notifications and WhatsApp groups. We’re fine. Celebrate your Harvard graduate, wrangle the dolly cart on move-out day, and quit worrying about us. Just be sure to stay away from the turkeys.
–In addition to being scared of the Yard turkeys, Nina G. Howe-Goldstein ’25 is a History concentrator in Mather House and is the outgoing publisher of the independent campus commentary
Real Haters of Cambridge, Mass. She has
and
Who Does Harvard Owe?
This year, Harvard has been pulled in every direction — by Congress, donors, media, and its own constituents. What started as a crisis of leadership quickly became something deeper: a test of whether Harvard could govern itself at all.
In all the noise, one fundamental question remains unanswered: Who gets a say as to how Harvard is governed?
We have seen what happens when the answer excludes Harvard affiliates. When Congress demands a crackdown and the Harvard Corporation seems to comply.
But this year has also shown what happens when the Harvard community refuses to be intimidated. Faculty lawsuits led to University lawsuits, and voices across disciplines, generations, and identities rallied in defense of what this University ought to be. In resisting the Trump administration’s attacks, we caught a glimpse of something rare: a university willing to speak with its own voice at a time when its very ethos has stood trial.
Who Gets A Say But Shouldn’t?
Over the past year, Harvard has fallen under siege, brought on not only by some of its failures, but also by many of its successes.
To its enemies, Harvard’s status as a global institution and cultivator of independent thought makes it a juicy political target. And in 2025, right-wing politicians have done their best to bring that target to heel.
From the moment President Donald Trump earned his return ticket to the White House, it was clear that higher education would be in the crosshairs. Harvard, the crown jewel of American academia, was primed to become an early victim.
We all knew the conflict was coming. With its vast power and influence, Harvard was not only poised, but obligated to lead the defense of academic freedom and democratic principles.
When the chaos arrived, it arrived swiftly: The government began dismantling diversity programs, cut research funds nationwide, and called for surveillance against international students. Harvard faced a stark choice: bend the knee and lose its integrity or stand firm and bear the costs.
We urged the latter. Again and again, we insisted Harvard could — and must — resist. We insisted that the attacks on certain diversity programs were fickle and opportunistic. That repression could be met with creative defiance. And that appeasement would buy us nothing.
We learned the lessons of Columbia University’s acquiescence — which seemed to win them nothing but further attacks. When Harvard finally stood its ground and sued the Trump administration, we applauded the move as a worthwhile stand.
By defending its autonomy, Harvard proved it could become the champion higher education so desperately needed. And yet, at key junctures, the University has acted as though Trump’s vision were its own.
Almost immediately after Trump’s inauguration, Harvard settled two lawsuits related to antisemitism. As part of the terms, Harvard adopted the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition. We’ve argued, alongside many scholars and civil rights groups, that the definition conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel and thus chills pro-Palestine speech.
Shortly afterwards, Harvard amended its anti-discrimination policies and suggested controversial statements in academic work would only “ordinarily” not violate Harvard’s new anti-bullying standards. The ambiguity of this standard posed a worrying threat to speech.
Similar moves followed. In rapid succession, the University came after not one, not two, but three different academic departments and programs pertaining to Palestine. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies had its directors dismissed, the Harvard School of Public Health suspended its research partnership with Palestine’s Birzeit University, and Harvard Divinity School paused the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative altogether. Then the Palestine Solidarity Committee was placed on probation for a protest it did not officially organize — a move so draconian and opaque it smacked of pretext.
This is not how principled institutions respond to pressure. When Harvard trades external scrutiny for internal repression, the University doesn’t buy relief — it emboldens more attacks. It signals that the lever of intimidation is working. Worse still, it forfeits the moral high ground that Harvard so badly needs. Mimicking the strong-arm tactics of our detractors only lends ill-intentioned critics legitimacy.
To win the battle for America’s future, Harvard must remain faithful to its values — the opposite
of what Trump’s attacks represent. The University cannot afford to lurch from scandal to scandal, reshaping itself in response to every congressional inquiry or donor tantrum. When it ignores the voices of its constituents, that’s exactly what it does.
The question of who gets a say is not a sideshow. It is Harvard’s defining issue. A university that silences students and sidelines faculty becomes reactive, brittle, and beholden. A university that distributes power, though, becomes resilient.
Who Should Have A Say?
The exemplars of moral clarity are often found in our classrooms. When the administration waffled, faculty stepped up. The Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors took the lead in suing the Trump administration over the attempted deportations of pro-Palestinian academics and students. They knew early on what was at stake: academic freedom and the soul of the University.
Our faculty are on the front lines of the struggle for intellectual freedom. When top-down closures or political calculations override their voices, our institution suffers. Harvard must empower faculty as guardians of its mission, not sideline them in times of crisis.
The easiest, most straightforward path to doing so is through the adoption of a faculty senate. At the very least, doing so would consolidate an important reservoir of opinion regarding the University’s governance. At best, a faculty senate could keep Harvard’s policies focused on ensuring our University remains academically free and in service of excellence. Amid the clamor of donors and headlines, faculty anchor the University’s mission.
Students, too, should play an increased role in shaping the decisions of our University. Any policy that affects Harvard often primarily affects students — we frequently navigate the uneven terrain between Harvard’s values and its operational priorities.
Students serve on the Honor Council, entrusted to adjudicate academic dishonesty among peers. And yet, unlike its peer institutions, Harvard College excludes students from its Administrative Board — the body responsible for certain decisions in student disciplinary cases. That exclusion suggests the University sees student participation as ornamental. When it comes to shaping or enforcing the rules that govern us, we are kept at arm’s length. That matters. Disciplinary policy cannot be altogether neutral. It determines how protest is policed, how dissent is punished, and which forms of student expression are tolerated. In an America where free speech can no longer be taken for granted, such decisions take on increased importance.
At Tufts University, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents abducted Rumeysa Ozturk, seemingly for nothing more than writing an op-ed — a chilling violation of civil liberties in broad daylight.
Harvard’s actions do not exist in a vacuum. When the University privilege certain speech, it sends a signal — to the government, to the media, to law enforcement — about which forms of speech are acceptable and which are punishable.
Faculty and students are not just stakeholders — we are stewards of Harvard’s values. They teach its classes, fill its lecture halls, and carry its principles into the world beyond campus. If this institution wants to defend academic freedom, it must start by trusting those who live it.
The Path Forward
As its lawsuits prepare to be litigated in court, Harvard faces a monumental task in standing up to a hostile government as the guardian of higher education. It cannot defeat the Trump agenda by mirroring its logic. Policies shaped through dialogue with the people those policies will affect look less like crisis management and more like collective resolve. They hold up under scrutiny because they are built to be defended, not abandoned after scandals subside. They carry a legitimacy that cannot be undone by hostile politicians. On a campus in dire need of unity, democratic governance is also a tool of cohesion. Students and faculty are far more likely to defend what they helped build as opposed to fighting edicts imposed on them from above. For Harvard to survive this moment — and lead through it — it must reimagine who has a say. As Cambridge becomes the crucible for the values of education, Harvard must ask not what it can afford to lose, but instead what it must defend.
–This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.
To the Class of 2025: Congratulations on a Life Lived in Four Years
BY JASON B. RUBENSTEIN
“The day of death is better than the day of birth… and the end of a thing is better than its beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:1; 7:8).
The ferocity of debate over ideas and politics — and your four years saw these arguments run as white-hot as any time at Harvard — often hides a deeper, and incorrect, consensus: that the most important learnings of college, and the most important commitments of a life, are in the realms of politics and ideas. What will you change in the material conditions of life; which frontier of knowledge will you surpass; and in your four years here, which causes have you championed, and what ideas and intellectual frameworks have you accomplished. The greater part of what you all have learned is in composing a life — and you have learned it through your successes and failures alike. At its most exis-
tential and most poignant, college is a life lived in miniature — a full arc of development, flourishing, achievement and failure, pride and regret, reflection, and then, an ending. Just as children play at battles or business, shopping or building a home — in college you have played, consciously or otherwise, at the fullness of life. As you confront the end of this span of your lives, you have the blessing of reflecting on and growing from what you did and who you were, and thereby the opportunity to begin your adult lives wiser and stronger.
First-years arrive — anticipated for months, full of promise, and not knowing a blessed thing. The first year is the childhood of a college career: dominated by trial and (lots of) error, and unencumbered by pressing expectations. Learning the place’s language and its norms, the lay of the land figuratively but also literally; figuring out which projects suit you, and where you might want to commit your precious future is the work of beginnings, in life and in
college.
Sophomore year is like your 20s and 30s: You’ve figured out a few important things, some of the older students in your clubs or concentration see your promise, early leadership roles around specific projects present themselves. (Some of these go well, others less so.) You hopefully have acquired a few close friends, a sense of your intellectual style, and a hunch for what you will specialize in.
Junior year is college’s middle age. This is your chance to take on leadership of something larger, to make decisions that affect others’ lives and for which there are no do-overs. You have had to choose between friendships and communities, between seeking or prioritizing love, and other patterns of sociality. One can acquire admirers, detractors, and even the beginnings of regrets.
And then senior year arrives and progresses, and with it a foretaste of retirement. Where we once made the decisions, others have taken the reins —
and we watch, with a mix of relief, envy, and nostalgia. It is natural to think back on what it all meant, to slow down and savor time with those you’ve become closest to, and to wonder about what might come next.
Today is the end of a miniature life, four years whose greatest significance will be revealed and determined by how you live your next decades. The conversation that distills the poignance of this day of completion and beginning is not one I had on this campus, but in a Manhattan nursing home I used to visit weekly. A frail, nearly ninety-year-old woman told me how sorry she felt for young people. She anticipated and savored my shock: Who would not envy the potential and vitality of youth, and what feeling could accompany one’s approaching and inevitable demise other than despair? She hastened to add, “Those students have to worry so much about how it will all go for them — there’s just no way for them to know. I know how my life went, and I’m proud and grateful.”
There will be no more shopping periods, no more fall move-ins, no more General Education courses or formals or group elections or midterms or papers. Unlike the students who will arrive in the fall to take your place at this great university, you know how it went— and you can be grateful and proud. And in your real lives, you are still young. The hardest choices and hardest work, not to mention the great uncertainties of love and success and satisfaction (or, God forbid, their opposites) open wide before you. Facing the unknowability of the future, you are not unequipped. The lessons — the pride, the gratitude, the learnings of what builds friendship and what corrodes trust, and the deepest learnings of all that come through honest reflection and regret, are yours. They will be your guides as you begin again after Harvard. Here you have lived a life in miniature, and you know — not so much in your minds as in
ZING
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE
Harvard College Class of 2025!
Today you join a long crimson line of exceptional alums. Welcome to the recent graduate community!
The Harvard Alumni Association and the Harvard College Fund would like to thank all the volunteers on the 2025 Class Committee for your leadership and dedication. From creating memorable class programming and events to raising awareness of how the Harvard College Fund supports every student throughout their Harvard journey, you have built a community with the potential to make a di erence for the next generation of Harvard students.
We appreciate all you have done, and will continue to do, to foster a culture of communication, participation, volunteerism, and philanthropy among your classmates.
HUPD Chief Resigns
PACKING UP. HUPD
Chief Victor A. Clay abruptly resigned on May 8 after four years working for the department.
BY MATAN H. JOSEPHY
M. SHUGART
Harvard University Police Department Chief Victor A. Clay abruptly resigned the afternoon of May 8, nearly four years after joining the department with a mandate to reform it after his predecessor departed in controversy.
Clay announced his resignation — effective immediately — in an email to department staff afternoon, which was obtained by The Crimson. His office was packed up earlier that day, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Clay’s departure follows rising tensions in Harvard’s police force. Earlier this semester, 34 out of 35 respondents on a membership survey conducted by the Harvard University Police Association — the union representing HUPD officers — said they lacked confidence in Clay.
The same number of respondents agreed in the survey that Clay has not “managed the Department in an open, ethical and fair manner” or “shown respect and appreciation” for officers’ work.
Clay informed Harvard Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick ’90 of his intent to resign earlier Thursday, according to his email.
Assistant Chief of Police Denis G. Downing will replace Clay in the interim, according to an email sent by Weenick to department staff later Thursday afternoon and ob-
tained by The Crimson. Francis D. “Bud” Riley, who led HUPD before Clay, resigned in 2020 after a Crimson investigation revealed decades of racist and sexist incidents in the department.
Spokespeople for HUPD and the University did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Clay arrived at HUPD in July 2021 and committed to reforming the department on the heels of an external review, released in December 2020, which recommended steep changes to the University’s police. He promised to improve HUPD’s handling of student mental health crises, and develop a closer working relationship with Harvard Human Resources.
A planned proposal to hire five unarmed Campus Support Officers never bore fruit.
Clay also quickly shook up HUPD’s staff, ousting much of Riley’s top brass and establishing new roles in senior leadership.
Clay wrote in his resignation email that, since he took office in 2021, he has aimed “to keep the campus and its diverse community safe.”
“I believe that we have begun that journey and have made significant strides toward those goals,” Clay wrote. “But I also knew that the change process would be difficult.”
“I believe it is in the best interest to give new leadership an opportunity to continue moving the department forward,” he added.
Clay’s tenure is the shortest of a Harvard police chief since the 1970s, when David L. Gorski resigned after less than two years. Gorski stepped down in 1977 after a feud with the police union over his reorganization and professionalization of the department.
matan.josephy@thecrimson.com laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com
Harvard, Kestenbaum Agree to Confidential Settlement
Harvard and lawyers representing Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum in his Title VI lawsuit against the University reached a settlement on May 15, ending Kestenbaum’s 16-month legal fight against Harvard.
The case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning Kestenbaum cannot reopen his claims. A person familiar with the case confirmed the dismissal was a settlement and said the terms of the agreement will be kept confidential.
Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that “Harvard University and Shabbos Kestenbaum have reached an agreement to resolve their ongoing litigation.”
“Harvard and Mr. Kestenbaum acknowledge each other’s steadfast and important efforts to combat antisemitism at Harvard and elsewhere,” Newton added.
Attorneys for Kestenbaum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kestenbaum first sued Harvard in January 2024 with a group calling itself Students Against Antisemitism, alleging the University had failed to protect students from antisemitism. Harvard settled in January 2025 with Students Against Antisemitism and a separate group suing the University over similar claims, agreeing to adopt new nondiscrimination policies to protect Jewish and Israeli students.
The settlement included Harvard’s adoption of the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which deems some criticisms of Israel antisemitic.
But Kestenbaum was unsatis-
fied with the terms and opted to continue pursuing the case under new counsel. A judge ruled in April that two students seeking to join Kestenbaum in his amended complaint could not be added to the case.
The settlement agreement comes just a week before the deadline for discovery was set to pass in the case — a deadline Kestenbaum sought to evade as he pushed back against the University’s motion to compel the production of documents ranging from communications with President Trump’s 2024 campaign to the contents of a private WhatsApp group.
ing to the University over the past month.
Though University President Alan M. Garber ’76 has announced Harvard’s commitment to resisting Trump’s demands, the University has also put programs engaging in scholarship around Israel and Palestine on pause and renamed its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. Pressure on the University only increased following the publication in April of an internal Harvard task force report on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. The report, along with a report from a parallel task force on anti-Arab, anti-Muslim,
But a judge ruled in April that Kestenbaum would have to produce documents. Kestenbaum and his lawyers did not respond to the ruling before an April 7 deadline.
The settlement agreement brings Harvard’s monthslong legal battle to a close at a time when the University is grappling with the effect of a series of federal funding cuts relating to allegations that it has failed to properly address antisemitism on campus.
The federal government has cut almost $3 billion in federal fund-
and anti-Palestinian bias, found that students had experienced widespread hostility and isolation on campus. Two weeks following the report, the Trump administration announced the cut of an additional $450 million in federal funding to Harvard, accusing the University of inaction regarding antisemitism and discriminating against white people.
sebastian.connolly@thecrimson.com
julia.karabolli@thecrimson.com
HUPD Chief Victor A. Clay speaks with officers on the Widener Library steps at Harvard’s 2024 Commencement. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Harvard reached a settlement with Kestenbaum in his lawsuit. JULIAN J. GIORDANO — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
FIFTEEN MINUTES 43
Derek J. Penslar is a professor of Jewish history and directs Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies. He is also the co-chair of Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combatting Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias and teaches the history class “One Land, Two Peoples: The Modern History of Israel/Palestine.” This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
FM: You study Judaism. Have you become more religious over the course of your life and your study?
DJP: I don’t know which came first. That is, I was raised in a non-religious home; I became interested in religion already a little bit in high school, certainly in university. So I began to go to synagogue. I began to learn more about Judaism, but I think that I reached a certain level of religious observance already in my 20s that hasn’t really changed in the last 40 plus years.
My studying has gone on and on and on. Although Jewish life means a great deal to me, and the Jewish religion is part of that life, I don’t think it is inextricably linked with my scholarship. I think my scholarship and teaching are actually different.
FM: You taught a course this semester called “One Land, Two peoples: The Modern History of Israel/Palestine.” How did the course unfold?
DJP: Well, it went very well. Most importantly, because I had fantastic students.
They brought into the course an open mind, a willingness to do the work and a willingness to engage with each other. So all of that was the most important precondition.
We also had a course assistant, [Shira Z. Hoffer ’25], who, at the very beginning of the course, led a session on constructive dialogue, respectful disagreement. And I don’t know if students in that first session really heard things they had never heard before, but it was symbolically very important then for them to see that Professor Penslar really cares about them, how they communicate with each other. I want them to learn from each other.
As the course went on — to get back to what I said a moment ago — I can’t escape my own subjecthood, my own strengths and limitations as a scholar and as a human being, and I was very honest about that. I’ve never taught a course before where so often I would say to the students, “Here’s what I don’t know.”
I think that the students appreciated that honesty. Simply put, I believe that within a few weeks of the start of term, we had developed trust in each other. And when the professors and the students trust each other, then you can really have a terrific and valuable learning experience.
FM: This isn’t the first year that a course like this has been offered. Is there anything different about this year’s iteration, especially given everything going on?
DJP: It’s different in a couple of ways. One is just the political atmosphere, which has made this subject more fraught, but also of greater interest to people.
But the second is that although I’ve been teaching about Israel for decades — and Palestine and the Palestinians have always been part of that course — I have never tried as hard as I did this term to make the course truly about Israel-Palestine as a unit, and not something primarily about Israel with Palestine and the Palestinians on the side.
I really wanted to acknowledge the students’ concerns, and all of our concerns, that if there’s going to be a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, that has to be done on the basis of true equality. So I brought that perspective into the class. The readings were 50-50. We read works by Palestinian authors, by Israeli/Jewish authors, other authors. The readings reflected a very broad range of viewpoints. They were carefully curated.
FM: You’re a busy man. You have a lot of appointments across the world. You teach a lot of seminars, lectures. You’re part of the
Q&A:
DEREK PENSLAR ON THE ANTISEMITISM TASK FORCE AND JEWISH SCHOLARSHIP
THE DIRECTOR OF HARVARD’S CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES, also a co-chair of the University’s task force on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias, sat down with FM to talk about the group’s reports.
BY XINNI (SUNSHINE)
CHEN AND JOHNNY H. PERKINS CRIMSON ASSOCIATE MAGAZINE EDITOR AND CRIMSON CONTRIBUTING WRITER
a different legal system than that of the State of Israel and its civilian population.
So in our minds, when you talk about two different legal systems for people living in the same territory, there was a word to describe it. But at the time, I was a little uncomfortable with the statement. And yes, looking back on it, I should not have signed it, simply because of the ease with which it can be manipulated.
First of all, very few people have actually read that statement. It does not say Israel is an apartheid state. It’s not what it says. It talks about what’s happening in the West Bank. But even then, I’m sorry for anything that I may have done that would weaken the credibility or threaten the work of the task force. I offered to resign from the task force to [Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76]. I said, “Look, maybe you want someone else.”
task force, and you also advise theses. How do you do it all?
KJP: I love my work, and the most important thing is I really love my work.
I’m at an age now where a lot of people have retired or think about retirement, and I’ve begun to think about that issue myself. But if you spent your life as a lawyer or in finance or business, working huge, long hours and maybe not doing the kind of work you love, and then you get to be 60 or something, then you might want to retire and then do something totally different.
The issue for me is I love what I do. And if I didn’t do this, I’d want to teach.
That, and I have a very, very understanding spouse.
FM: Tell me about how you met your wife.
DJP: We met in October of 1981 at a Yom Kippur break fast. It was the night after the end of the Day of Atonement — the most sacred or holy day of the Jewish year — and it’s a day
of fasting. And a friend of mine who was at the law school at Berkeley — I was a grad student at the time, getting a Ph.D. — he invited me to a break the fast at the home of the woman who ran the Jewish Law Students Association of Berkeley.
I walked in the door, and it was this very nice home, and there was nice food, and there was this cute, very small, curly-haired young woman with a nice, warm smile. And I talked with her, and I thought, “Hmm, this could work.”
And then I gathered up my courage. A few days later, I remember standing by the telephone in my house where I was living. I was standing by the phone on the piano, trembling as I called her up and asked her to have lunch.
And there you go. That’s 44 years ago.
FM: Now that the Antisemitism Task Force has been released, how do you feel about how it turned out?
DJP: I stand by the report, and I’m very glad that we did it. It wasn’t an
easy experience. I am now hopeful that we will move on with dedication and focus to implementation, to making Harvard a better place for everyone — a better community, a more engaged community, and certainly a more respectful community.
FM: You faced backlash over your past writings and petitions critical of Israeli government actions, including some that refer to Israel as an apartheid state. In hindsight, do you regret signing these petitions?
DJP: I do regret signing that one petition for the simple reason that the net value of signing a petition is pretty small and the net risk is high.
That petition and of itself — which was signed by 3,000 academics, including almost all of my colleagues in my field in North America — simply said that we cannot talk about democracy in Israel and the independence of the court system and other things that the current government is trying to undermine. We cannot talk about these things in Israel without reminding people that the West Bank is under occupation under military law, under
But to my great fortune, I did not have the opportunity to leave, and here I am.
FM: You considered stepping down at one point. What motivated you to stay on?
DJP: It was hard. I was being attacked so much, and I don’t mind when people disagree with me for things I actually write or say, but people were just piling on me for things I had not really said. They were attacking an avatar of me, as opposed to me, and I found it very dispiriting. But I realized that if I were to give in, then I’m essentially sending a message to any political bully out there.
You bully Claudine Gay, you can get her to step down. And you bully a much more middle-level faculty member like Derek Penslar, you get him to step down. You can just do anything to anyone. So I was determined to stay on. I just don’t want to give in to a bully. I don’t think any of us ever should.
FM: The report contains deeply personal student testimonies. But as a Jewish professor at Harvard during this time, what has it been like for you? Have you experienced antisemitism yourself?
DJP: I have not. But there’s a big asterisk next to that, which is: I am a tenured full professor.
I teach students who are overwhelmingly engaged, nice, interesting and interested people. I go to meetings where we talk about whatever one does in meetings, administrative things or whatever. What are the circumstances under which I would encounter antisemitism? I simply don’t live a life where that would happen.
I might encounter remarks that make me uncomfortable. Somebody might say things about Israel that I find disconcerting in one way or another. But I’m not in a situation where I’m going to encounter at Harvard itself, an overtly antisemitic statement. What I do encounter is hate email.
So I have a little email folder called “unpleasantness.”
But that’s why, when a faculty member at Harvard says, “I am Jewish and I have not encountered antisemitism,” that might very well be true. But the experience of an individual Harvard faculty member doesn’t really add up to much. We have 22,000 students, and ultimately, it’s those students’ experiences that matter. Fifteen Minutes
To
PHOTO COURTESY OF DEREK J. PENSLAR
University Offers an End to Time Caps
LABOR. Harvard negotiators offered last week to remove limits on lecturer and preceptor posts.
BY HUGO C. CHIASSON AND AMANN S. MAHAJAN CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Harvard negotiators offered to remove limits on lecturer and preceptor appointments in a contract proposal to the University’s nontenure-track faculty union on May 19, a major victory for the union. The changes, included in a contract negotiation counterproposal, would replace the time cap system — which currently limits non-tenure-track faculty appointments to two, three, or eight years — with a tiered promotion ladder for lecturers and preceptors ending in a position with unlimited renewals. They would represent a significant change to the structure of academic employment at Harvard if the proposal is finalized.
Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers does not plan on accepting the University’s counterproposal, citing other restrictions in the University’s language in an email to unit members on May 22. The new University proposal expands upon a February offer
to remove preceptor time caps by setting up Lecturer I, II, and III positions alongside previously proposed Preceptor I, II, and III positions. While the Lecturer III and Preceptor III appointments can be renewed indefinitely, a worker not promoted to those positions would still have to leave at the end of their appointment.
But the counterproposal included several stipulations — including workloads of four to six courses or sections per year and a minimum course enrollment of 50 students per year for lecturers, as well as continued caps on Teaching Assistant positions — that make the University’s offer “unacceptable,” according to the union.
Under the counterproposal, lecturers and preceptors with I or II appointments would still be subject to nonrenewable limited appointments by default, unless they applied for a promotion to the next tier. They would only be eligible for a promotion if there is curricular need and budgetary approval.
The changes would also be tied to an earlier counterproposal from the University that strikes out language classifying non-reappointments as a form of discipline. The union has objected to the change because they say employees who are not reappointed should generally
have access to the same grievance process as employees who are fired.
“So, while there is a big crack in the foundation — something we’ve accomplished by building our own power — we still have to push much harder to win the security and stability we deserve,” Thomas A. Dichter ’08, a lecturer in History & Literature and bargaining committee member, wrote in the email to members.
The Monday offer comes after a monthslong campaign by HAW-UAW since the union formed last year to end the time cap policy in negotiations for its first contract. The union represents 3,700 non-tenure-track faculty at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard Divinity School, and Harvard Medical School. A separate unit represents a small group of Harvard Law School faculty.
Harvard negotiators had previously rejected the union’s proposal for a moratorium on time caps for the duration of bargaining.
Alongside changes to lecturer positions, the University counterproposal expanded the time frame for College fellowships from one- to two-year appointments to three- to five-year roles. At the session on May 19, University officials also rejected HAW-UAW’s proposed union security article’s language, which would require all employees in the bargaining unit to pay agency fees to the union regardless of membership. According to the union, University officials rebuffed a proposal on academic freedom that would enshrine employ-
British researchers have determined that a “copy” of the Magna Carta owned by the Harvard Law School Library is a rare original issued by England’s King Edward I in 1300. The copy was previously thought to date back to 1327. The Magna Carta, issued by King John in 1215, established that the monarch is a subject under the law, just like any other citizen. It was reissued a number of times throughout the thirteenth century, and was released for the final time with the king’s seal in 1300. Seven original charters issued by King Edward I are known to exist. Six copies are in the United Kingdom, while Harvard Law School’s Magna Carta is now the only known copy abroad.
The discovery was made by David Carpenter, a professor at King’s College London, and Nicholas Vincent, a professor at the University of East Anglia. Carpenter, a Magna Car -
ta expert, was researching unofficial copies of the charter and suspected the Law School’s copy was actually an original. He then worked with Vincent, another Magna Carta expert, to investigate further. The charter, an agreement between the King of England and rebel barons, gave way to the idea of a limited government and inspired the writers of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. In a joint press release between the three universities, Vincent called it “the most famous single document in the history of the world.”
“Given where it is, given present problems over liberties, over the sense of constitutional tradition in America, you couldn’t invent a provenance that was more wonderful than this,” he added.
According to its records, the Law School Library bought the document for $27.50 in 1946 — less than $500 today, according to the government’s Consumer Inflation Index calculator.
Carpenter and Vincent found that the Law School’s copy shared key similarities
with the previously known originals, including its physical dimensions and the handwriting of the large capital “E” at the start of “Edwardus” in the charter’s first line.
The professors used images obtained by the library’s staff using ultraviolet and spectral imaging to analyze the text and confirm its alignment with other 1300 issues.
In the release, HLS library assistant dean Amanda T. Watson emphasized the role of libraries in preserving historical documents, adding that digitization has opened the door for more such research to be done.
“This work exemplifies what happens when magnificent collections, like Harvard Law Library’s, are opened to brilliant scholars,” Watson wrote.
“Behind every scholarly revelation stands the essential work of librarians who not only collect and preserve materials but create pathways that otherwise would remain hidden,” she added.
ees’ rights to “teach, research, and conduct creative pursuits” without restraint, as well as one on “disciplinary vitality” that would prevent Harvard from unilaterally downsizing departments without consulting the union.
“On all of these fronts, we
will not take ‘no’ for an answer,” Dichter wrote in the bargaining update. A University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
BY DHRUV T. PATEL AND GRACE E. YOON CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Suzanne Glassburn — a former senior administrator at MIT — will become the next secretary of Harvard’s governing bodies, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced on May 8. In the role, Glassburn will serve as vice president and secretary of Harvard, overseeing the Office of the Governing Bodies, which supports the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, the University’s two governing boards.
Glassburn — who served as vice president and secretary of the MIT Corporation until she resigned in August 2023 — said in a press release that she was excited to take a similar role at Harvard, just a short walk up the Charles River.
“I am deeply grateful to President Garber for the opportunity to serve an institution with such an incredible history of strong governance and respected leadership,” Glassburn said in the release. “I look forward to joining a team committed to maintaining, upholding, and strengthening this essential partnership between administration and governance.”
Her appointment was announced just weeks before Marc L. Goodheart ’81, who has
held the role for nearly three decades, prepares to step down at the end of the academic year. Goodheart will remain at Harvard as a senior adviser to Garber and other top officials.
In the press release, Garber celebrated Glassburn’s appointment and said she would be a critical resource at a “moment of great consequence for Harvard and higher education.”
“A deeply experienced and widely respected senior university administrator, Suzanne is an individual of exceptional demeanor, diplomacy, and intellect,” Garber said in the release.
Glassburn will begin her post at Harvard as it stares down a flurry of threats from the Trump administration, including a $2.2 billion cut in federal funding and a lawsuit between the White House and Harvard that is expected to last well into the first few months of Glassburn’s term.
Some of the scrutiny on Harvard has focused directly on its governing boards. In a letter cutting off future federal grants to Harvard, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon accused Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 of “disastrous mismanagement.” Pritzker has faced calls for her resignation since the turbulent end to former Harvard President Claudine Gay ‘s tenure.
Glassburn comes to Harvard having overseen the Office of
the President at MIT and handled the school’s outreach to lawmakers in Washington for more than five years. Glassburn will also play an important role in overseeing the search for Garber’s successor — which is expected to commence in 2026 — and helping reform it based on recommendations issued by a subgroup of the Corporation. During her five-year stint on the MIT Corporation, Glassburn helped the school establish AI research laboratories, launch initiatives on human and machine intelligence, and organize The Engine — a MIT-founded nonprofit providing start-ups with financial and technical resources. Glassburn also spent more than a decade in MIT’s Office of the General Counsel, where she worked with members of Harvard’s OGC to structure and establish edX, an online education platform launched as a joint venture between MIT and Harvard in 2012. Before coming to MIT, Glassburn served as a partner at the Boston law firm Nutter, McClennen, and Fish, LLP, where she advised clients in the nonprofit and private sectors on matters including corporate governance and intellectual property.
The clock on Massachusetts Hall in early spring. PAVAN V. THAKKAR — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
What Harvard Told the DHS
BY ELYSE C. GONCALVES AND MATAN H. JOSEPHY CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
The Trump administration abruptly ended Harvard’s ability to enroll international students on Thursday — jeopardizing the legal status of more than one in four students on campus. Less than a day later, the University swung back in court.
Harvard sued the federal government on Friday morning, asking a judge to rule that an order from the Department of Homeland Security halting Harvard’s ability to enroll students on certain visas next fall was illegal.
University lawyers simultaneously motioned to temporarily block the government move immediately, writing that “countless academic programs, research laboratories, clinics, and courses” have been thrown into chaos by the order.
It took less than two hours for a judge to agree, freezing the Trump administration’s efforts to cut off international enrollment at Harvard until the two sides could meet at a set of hearings next week.
“Without its international students,” lawyers for Harvard wrote in a Friday court filing, “Harvard is not Harvard.”
While Harvard Law School professor Noah R. Feldman ’92 said it is likely that the courts will extend the temporary restraining order, the legal battle will only increase the strain on a university already embroiled in a high-profile standoff with the White House.
The court battle between the University and the Trump administration escalates a monthslong dispute between the two over a list of demands sent by the federal government to Harvard concerning data collected on international students. New documents from Harvard’s lawsuit reveal that the University complied with many of the government’s requests, providing international student enrollment data and limited disciplinary records.
Here’s what to know about the buildup to, and implications of, Harvard’s second major legal battle with the Trump administration.
What is Harvard’s Dispute with the Department of Homeland Security?
On April 16, Harvard leadership received a startling letter from Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security: Hand over a trove of information on your international students, Noem demanded, or lose them. The letter threatened to revoke Harvard’s certification governing access to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, a federally-run database that schools need to manage information about their international students.
To keep access, the Trump administration demanded that Harvard share the disciplinary, legal, and academic records of visa holders. If Harvard did not comply, the administration wrote that it would label the move a “voluntary withdrawal” from the federal database that the University could not appeal.
A tug-of-war quickly followed. Harvard ultimately agreed to send the federal government limited information about international students on April 30 — the DHS’ deadline for a response. According to court documents, Harvard submitted records “that reflect student enrollment” for individuals on F-1 visas, as well as “SEVIS termination and cancellation data” detailing changes to students’ immigration status on April 30. But lawyers for Harvard claimed in the email that they were not required by federal law to provide explanations for
disciplinary actions. Their response was not enough. In a May 7 email, the Trump administration claimed that the University failed to fully comply with its request, further threatening the University’s SEVP access.
The DHS wrote that Harvard still needed to send the government information on four fronts: international students’ legal activity, “dangerous or
mer undergraduate who was disciplined for “inappropriate social behavior involving physical violence,” as well as noting two student athletes on F-1 visas who were placed on probation in 2025.
“We do not believe this is the type of conduct your inquiry seeks but can provide more information upon request,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote of the athletes’ cases.
Even after the submissions, Noem ultimately decided to revoke Harvard’s SEVIS certification, claiming that the University failed to provide adequate information. Harvard’s lawyers argue that “DHS deemed Harvard’s responses ‘insufficient’ — without explaining why or citing any regulation with which Harvard failed to comply.”
violewwwnt activity,” and “known deprivation of rights of” or “threats” made towards others at Harvard – without requesting information on international students’ protest and academic records.
Harvard claimed in court that it “conducted a search and again produced additional responsive information” after the May 7 letter, and did so again on May 14 after a “follow-up request” from the federal government.
Before its May 14 submission, lawyers for Harvard asked administration officials if they had intended to expand the legal scope of the government’s request by asking for expansive data on the criminal records, degree status, and employer information of international students.
Emails submitted by Harvard as part of its lawsuit reveal that Homeland Security officials responded on May 14, the day documents were due, and claimed that their original request had already asked for such information.
In its May 14 submission, Harvard wrote it was unaware of any criminal convictions against students on F- or J- visas. The University provided the SEVIS number of one for -
Feldman said the government failed to “cite the regulations it claimed had been violated” following its May 7 request — a detail which may ultimately prove decisive to the University’s case.
“That violates the Administrative Procedures Act, as well as the due process clause of the Constitution,” he said.
DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a statement that Friday’s ruling “delays justice and seeks to kneecap the President’s constitutionally vested powers under Article II.”
“We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side,” she added.
Constitutional Questions Core to the University’s suit is an even larger argument: that the Trump administration’s crackdown on Harvard violates the First Amendment.
“The government has casually discarded core First Amendment protections, the protections of procedural due process, and DHS’s own regulations to immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and its community,” Harvard wrote in its lawsuit.
In particular, Harvard’s lawsuit singles out the issue of academic freedom as a core prin -
ciple of the First Amendment, which it claims the government has trampled on.
“Colleges and universities have a constitutionally protected right to manage an academic community and evaluate teaching and scholarship free from governmental interference,” Harvard wrote.
The University’s forceful rejection of the Trump administration on constitutional grounds has raised the stakes of its confrontation with the White House.
If Harvard accepted the DHS’ demands, it would set a new standard for the federal government’s ability to exert control over academia by ceding student records without the pressure of a court order. But if the University rejected the effort, it risked jeopardizing the status of thousands of undergraduate and graduate students. Harvard, ultimately, chose the latter. But they claimed that in presenting the University with a choice, the Trump administration “effectively conditioned Harvard’s SEVP
has used those visa holders as “pawns in the government’s escalating campaign of retaliation.”
A ban on international enrollment would also place all of Harvard’s international students currently in the U.S. at risk of deportation, according to a DHS press release.
Harvard framed much of its argument in the lawsuit around perceived threats to the University’s reputation and its students. In Harvard’s lawsuit, University lawyers claimed that a ban on international students would cripple Harvard by diminishing its research output, academic offerings, and ability to compete with other schools.
“Defendants’ actions — unless halted by this Court — will cause an imminent, concrete, and irreparable injury to Harvard, its students and faculty, and its ability to achieve its educational mission,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote in their lawsuit.
The administration’s move also poses a significant financial risk for Harvard. Accord -
If they do, they’ll appeal that to the First Circuit, where they’ll lose, and then they might appeal to the Supreme Court, where I predict they would still lose.
certification on the University’s relinquishing of its constitutional rights.”
How Could This Affect the University?
If the Trump administration’s decision were to go into effect, it would have devastating impacts for Harvard and its international population.
Harvard hosts more than 7,000 students studying on a visa. In its suit, the University claims that the government
ing to the nonprofit Institute for International Education, foreign students are more likely to pay full tuition at universities across the United States. As Harvard has already lost nearly $3 billion in its federal funding, Thursday’s ban could significantly worsen the University’s existing financial strain.
What Comes Next for Harvard?
With the University back in court against the federal gov -
ernment, its international students are left without a clear path forward.
A federal judge has granted Harvard a temporary restraining order — effectively, an immediate block on the Trump administration’s policy that lasts pending a hearing. The two sides will meet in court next week, at a hearing in Boston on Harvard’s Commencement Day, to argue over whether the judge’s order should be extended.
“The Trump administration will have to decide if they’re going to appeal the temporary restraining order,” Feldman, the HLS professor, said. “If they do, they’ll appeal that to the First Circuit, where they’ll lose, and then they might appeal to the Supreme Court, where I predict they would still lose.” Even if Harvard picks up wins against the Trump administration in court, the White House’s no-holds-barred assault on the nation’s oldest university may still send students reeling.
It will take a longer legal battle — potentially with a trial — to decide whether the TRO becomes permanent. That process will continue to destabilize the lives of Harvard’s thousands of international students, whose enrollment may be conditioned on the whims of a federal court for months on end — though ongoing litigation could simultaneously protect their time at Harvard for longer.
The fight over international students may further erode any good will that remains between the University’s leadership and the White House.
Harvard currently faces nearly a dozen investigations by the Trump administration and Congress, and may continue to stare down probes and funding cuts. Even if those are all challenged in court, they could continue to sink Harvard into expensive and high-profile fights with an administration that has continued to dig in its heels.
CITY COUNCIL
Elow Confirms ICE Action
ignation in 1985 — reaffirming its status in 2006, 2016, and 2020.
BY SHAWN A. BOEHMER CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Cambridge Police Commissioner Christine A. Elow confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement have arrested at least one individual in the city, but made it clear at a May 19 City Council meeting that the department will not assist ICE agents.
As one of Massachusetts’ eight sanctuary cities, Cambridge does not compel its police officers to assist ICE agents as they deport and detain undocumented immigrants.
The city first voted to adopt the des-
But despite Cambridge’s sanctuary city status, Elow said ICE agents have repeatedly solicited support from CPD. She highlighted an incident from “a couple of weeks ago,” where ICE arrested an individual outside of the Cambridge Police Station.
“ICE called and asked if they were still in custody, and we said, ‘we don’t cooperate with ICE,’” Elow said. “They waited outside of our police station, and when the person was released on bail, they picked them up.”
“So ICE is very active,” she added. The news of this arrest comes as cities across Massachusetts are seeing a rise in deportations and ICE activity. The ICE arrest of a woman in
Worcester earlier this month drew attention from across the state after onlookers protested the detainment. ICE also detained several teenagers in Chelsea. And just a few minutes from Cambridge, federal officials mistakenly detained an American citizen outside a courthouse in Medford on May 17.
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Elow’s Monday night statements.
While Elow affirmed that CPD did not cooperate with ICE, councilors continued to raise concerns about whether the department would comply with federal agents in the future. But City Manager YiAn Huang ’05 made it clear that Cambridge’s city ordinances prohibit such collaboration.
“Our ordinance, similar to
Worcester, notes no officer or employee of the Cambridge Police Department may participate in an operation led by a federal agency to detain persons for deportation purposes,” he said.
Elow said that there have been multiple instances where ICE asked CPD for information, and CPD has not complied.
“We’ve had at least four ICE detainer requests, and we have not honored them,” she said.
Megan Bayer, the Cambridge city solicitor, said that while CPD cannot stop ICE officers from detaining individuals, the department will take action if individuals attempt to impersonate ICE officers.
“If there were a situation where the police were called to respond and it was someone impersonating a fed-
eral agent, I think the police would be able to handle that,” she said. But she added that if ICE officials have probable cause, the department is unable to take action to stop the detention.
“I don’t think Cambridge Police Department has the
More than a hundred Allston-Brighton residents and local leaders gathered on a lawn behind the Charlesview Residences affordable housing complex on the evening of May 13 to protest alleged Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the neighborhood, pledging to “stand up and fight back” for their immigrant neighbors.
Rumors of local ICE activity have swirled across the neighborhood in recent days, with accounts of at least five different ICE sightings since May 5 circulating over
Facebook groups, email listservs, and by word of mouth.
Protesters condemned alleged ICE arrests, but The Crimson was not able to verify whether arrests had been made in the neighborhood. A spokesperson for ICE did not immediately return a request to confirm whether, where, or when ICE has made any arrests in Allston-Brighton this month. In speeches delivered in both English and Spanish, speakers at the protest denounced the climate of extreme fear that rumored ICE activity has wrought on the neighborhood’s immigrant population. Since the Trump administration mounted a campaign in January to deport millions of immigrants from the United States, local lead-
ers across the country have said that many immigrants without legal status are opting to stay home and keep away from public spaces.
“We are here because ICE’s activity in our community is causing fear, pain, lost income, lost education, and is damaging all of the things that make a community healthy,” Anna E. Leslie, director of the Allston Brighton Health Collaborative, said.
In an interview before the protest, Boston City Councilor Elizabeth A. “Liz” Breadon, who is herself from Northern Ireland, noted that Allston-Brighton has long been an “immigrant neighborhood.”
She added that the Boston Police Department does not work with ICE to detain residents, and empha-
sized that residents should not fear that reporting crimes to the police will put them at risk of ICE detention.
Leslie, who helped to organize the protest, said in an interview afterward that she hoped the event had raised awareness that what many have largely consumed as a national issue is directly unfolding in their neighborhood.
“We want people to know this is happening here, in Allston-Brighton, and not somewhere else to someone else,” Leslie said. “This is happening to the parents of our schoolchildren and the people who work at our restaurants and the people that we walk by in the neighborhoods.”
Jo-Ann
Barbour, executive di-
rector of the Charlesview Residences, said that fears of ICE are “retraumatizing” for some who live in the Charlesview and may have arrived to the U.S. after fleeing police repression in their home country.
Nicolasa López, a member of the Allston Brighton Health Collaborative board, called on attendees to stand up for their immigrant neighbors.
“Do not wait until they come for you, because they are threatening our immigration neighbors. They are threatening the very fabric of our democracy,” López said.
“Let us rise together, not as divided community, but as one people committed to justice, compassion, and the fundamental truth that no human being is illegal,” she
said. Throughout the rally, participants distributed flyers advertising LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts’s hotline for people to report ICE sightings, as well as know-your-rights print-outs for encounters with immigration authorities.
Heloisa M. Galvão, executive director of the Brazilian Women’s Group, spoke directly to immigrants fearing for their security. “Hear my message for those who think that they do not have a voice: You do. You better. You have rights. Civil rights are not erased in this town,” Galvão said.
emily.schwartz@thecrimson.com kevin.zhong@thecrimson.com
HARVARD SQUARE BUSINESS
How Denise Jillson Fought Rent Control
POLITICS.
STATE
Before becoming the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, Jillson helped lead the charge to end rent control in Massachusetts.
BY JAYA N. KARAMCHETI AND KEVIN ZHONG CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Many Cambridge residents know Denise A. Jillson, the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, as the heart of the local economy.
“She’s got her finger in everything, and she just cares so passionately about the Square that when I need something, I call Denise,” Carol Lewis, the congregational administrator at First Parish in Cambridge, said. But beyond her work at the HSBA, Jillson also has a deep history of political advocacy in the city. As former co-chair of the the Small Property Owners Association and chair of the Massachusetts Homeowners Coalition, Jillson helped lead the charge to repeal rent control in Massachusetts during the 1994 state election.
Rent control, which was established in Cambridge during the 1970s, subjected more than a third of the city’s residential units to strict regulations on rent-price increases. Since the state referendum banning rent control narrowly passed, Cambridge’s housing stock increased by nearly $2 billion while residential turnover sharply increased.
John P. DiGiovanni, who worked with Jillson on the rent control repeal campaign, credited their success to Jillson’s dedication and leadership.
“I was really a soldier in her army, and she was the general,” he said.
‘We’re Not Alone in This’
Jillson said her interest in property ownership stems from her long family history in Cambridge.
“My family’s been in this area for generations, so the first family member that purchased property was here in Harvard Square in 1654,” Jillson said.
“Property ownership has always been in my DNA,” she added. But it was not until 1986, when Jillson bought a rent controlled property with her husband, that she began advocating against rent control.
Jillson said that her experience as a landlord showed her the flaws of the rent control system. Despite the policy’s goal to help low-income individuals secure housing, Jillson said it inevitably caused landlords to “rent to the person with the highest credit rating.”
“So, if a single mom with three kids shows up to rent a unit, and a single person with a good job and no children, and is a young professional, who am I going to rent to?” Jillson said.
Frustrated by the policy, Jillson was spurred to action after seeing a flyer advocating against rent control — demonstrating that landlords were going through the same situation as her.
“I said to my husband, ‘We’re not alone in this. There are apparently other people that are having difficulty,’” she said.
Jillson then attended a meeting hosted by the Small Property Owners Association, an advocacy organization formed in opposition to rent control. After seeing how “fired up” other attendees were about the issue, Jillson decided to fully “jump in” to the world of advocacy. When she became co-chair of
SPOA in 1992, Jillson worked with an MIT economist to perform a demographic analysis of renters in Cambridge. The study found that 90 percent of renters were white, single, and college-educated, she said.
“That’s who it was, because we put them there. We did that because we had to pay our mortgage,” Jillson said. “The system doesn’t work, and it has the fundamental flaw, and that’s the part that was so upsetting.”
‘Brokered a Deal’
Two years into Jillson’s tenure as SPOA co-chair, she set her sights on the state elections, working as the chair of the Massachusetts Housing Coalition to get the repeal of rent control on the ballot.
For an initiative to qualify for the ballot, organizers needed to collect signatures from across the state equaling the amount of three percent of the total votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election. DiGiovanni said Jillson was the primary force responsible for securing these signatures.
“She was out in front of the room giving people and groups their assignments. She was the one keeping the trains on time. She had a whole map plan on how we were going to go and make this case to the people,” he said.
Jillson said her advocacy for rent control — combined with her full-time career and family life — was made possible by her partnership with her husband, George Pereira.
“There were no breaks, there were no holidays, there was no such thing as Thanksgiving,” Jillson said. “We were always, always, working.”
“I would get home from work, feed the kids, check their homework, George would take over, and I would take to the street,” she added.
The rent control repeal ballot initiative was ultimately successful, passing with a narrow 51 percent of the vote. But the policy battle did not end at the ballot box.
After the narrow win, municipalities – including Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline — filed home rule petitions in an attempt to extend rent control protections. State legislators approved the Cambridge petition, but ran into complications with anti-rent control governor William F. Weld ’66.
DiGiovanni said that Jillson stepped in to help resolve the complex situation.
“She brokered a deal with the legislature,” he said. “And legislature was unhappy, a good portion of them, and they had the majority — but they didn’t have enough to overturn a veto. So they needed the
governor to agree.”
“He basically said to the legislature, ‘I’ll take my lead from Denise Jillson,” he added. “So that told them to get in a room and broker a deal with Denise.”
Jillson worked with legislators to expand rent-control protections for two years for certain income-eligible tenants — paving the way for its eventual abolition.
“Politics is about the art of compromise,” Jillson said.
“It can’t be all or nothing,” she added.
Now, as cities move to reinstate rent control protections across the state, Jillson has continued her advocacy against the protections. In 2019, she published an op-ed in Wicked Local titled “Rent control in Cambridge – why it didn’t work then and won’t work now.”
CBP, Not ICE, Responsible for Mistaken Arrest on May 16
BY LAUREL M. SHUGART CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents claimed responsibility for wrongfully detaining a naturalized citizen last week — a mistake initially attributed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Hugo Monteiro, a 31-year old U.S. citizen from Brazil, was detained as he was leaving the Cambridge District Courthouse in Medford last Friday after he was mistaken for an undocumented immigrant.
In an interview shortly after being released, Monteiro said that the officers identified themselves as ICE. But James Covington, a spokesperson for ICE, denied responsibility for the detainment.
“It was Border Patrol. It was not ICE,” Covington said. CBP later claimed responsibility for the wrongful detainment in a statement to The Crimson, which contained multiple factual inaccuracies about the incident.
“On May 15, 2025, several bystanders began protesting U.S. Border Patrol agents who were assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside the Cambridge District Courthouse in Medford,” Hilton Beckham, a CBP spokesperson, wrote.
Monteiro was detained on May 16 while more than a dozen alleged clients of a high-end brothel network were being arraigned inside of the courthouse — a case that has drawn the attention of local media.
“Amidst the chaos, agents believed a man exiting the courthouse to be an ICE suspect and illegal alien. The agents acted swiftly and in line with established protocols to maintain public safety by detaining him away from the angry protestors,” Beckham added.
When the agents detained Monteiro, four affiliates of various local news organizations were waiting outside the courthouse alongside two bystanders. There was no protest at the time of the detainment.
CBP did not respond to multiple requests for a corrected statement.
CBP wrote that their agents were “assisting” an ICE targeted activity, which led them to mistakenly identify Monteiro as another suspect.
“They had a picture of someone, they thought it was me,” Monteiro said. “I think it was just bad timing.”
Monteiro was approached by four plainclothes officers, none wearing any external badge or police vest. Officers showed their badges after detaining him, Monteiro said.
He was handcuffed and escorted to an unmarked Jeep Cherokee, where he was asked for his identification. Upon realizing their mistake, CBP released Monteiro roughly 15 minutes after initially being detained.
“They pulled over in the parking lot. They explained to me they wanted to make sure they had the correct person,” Monteiro said. “I showed them my ID, my passport and my pic -
But others are not so sure. In 2023, the Cambridge City Council voted to support a bill from the state legislature that would repeal the ban on rent control.
Despite recent activism to reinstate rent control, Jillson stands by her work, saying that it helped pave the way for Cambridge’s current success.
“During the 70s and 80s and the early 90s, the city was
financially,” she said. “Then when
control went away, as well as the advent of
dall, with all the biotech, we now have a city.” “Now, 20 years later, 30 years later, the city is in a remarkable, enviable financial situation,” she added.
CBP did not respond to
ture, and they confirmed that it was not me.” Other recent arrests have sparked outrage across the state. An ICE arrest of a woman in Worcester two weeks ago spiraled into disorder as a crowd
began to protest the action, repeatedly asking to see a warrant and trying to prevent the arrest.
U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley issued a pointed statement denouncing “interference” with immigration agents last week.
City Councilor Paul Toner Pleads Not Guilty in Cambridge Brothel Case
BY MATAN H. JOSEPHY AND LAUREL M.
Cambridge City Councilor Paul F. Toner and 13 other men pleaded not guilty to sexual conduct for a fee at Cambridge District Court on the morning of May 16, officially advancing their cases to trial. More than 30 men have been charged for allegedly patronizing a high-end Cambridge brothel network, with 28 pleading not guilty in arraignments over the past two weeks. The hearings were the first time that most of the men appeared in court since being publicly named in March’s probable cause hearings. The May 16 hearings for each of the 14 men followed a simi -
lar pattern as the first arraignments last week — defendants waived a public reading of the police report, entered their pleas, and scheduled a pretrial date with Massachusetts District Court Judge David E. Frank. The police reports were first made public in the March hearings, where Cambridge Police Department Lieutenant Jarred Cabral read similar findings for each of the 34 men. The reports detailed text conversations between the alleged clients and the “brothel phone,” where the parties arranged appointments and payments. The majority of the clients paid more than $300 for a one-hour “girlfriend experience,” which Cabral said referred to spending more than an hour with one woman who
“provides a more intimate experience,” including sex acts.
Timothy R. Flaherty, a lawyer who represents Toner and fellow defendant Paul E. Grant, filed a motion to compel discovery shortly before the Friday hearings. If the motion is approved by a judge, the prosecutors would be required to share evidence that has not yet been disclosed. The judge will rule on the motion at Toner’s pretrial hearing on July 29.
Flaherty advised Toner not to resign, saying he should be considered innocent despite mounting calls from Toner’s colleagues on the Council.
“My advice is: don’t resign,” Flaherty said outside of the courthouse, “You are presumed innocent in this country, and the allegations have to be supported by evidence to this point.”
Toner, like most of the defendants, is accused of frequently purchasing sex through the brothel network. He allegedly visited the brothel on 13 different dates, according to the police report.
Mitchell H. Rubenstein, an assistant professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, and James C. Cusack, an oncologist and former HMS professor, will appear for pretrial hearings on July 22 alongside 17 of the other alleged clients.
The six remaining defendants are scheduled to be arraigned May 30. All the men will appear in court on June 13, July 30, and August 1 to begin their criminal trials.
matan.josephy@thecrimson.com laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com
Hugo Monteiro was detained in error by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents outside the Cambridge District Courthouse. IKE J. PARK — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
Denise Jillson, the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, sat down to talk with The Crimson at the Smith Campus center. GRACE E. YOON — CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
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