The Ivy League school has long faced criticism for lacking viewpoint diversity; Trump admin says prospective center won’t help
Harvard University is considering launching a center for conservative scholarship, a move that the Trump administration has reportedly dismissed as window-dressing amid its investigation of the Ivy League school over DEI initiatives and muted response to campus anti-Semitism.
Harvard officials have discussed the idea with potential donors, describing it as a center for conservative scholarship that could mirror Stanford’s Hoover Institution, people familiar with the talks told the Wall Street Journal. The proposal, which first gained momentum after anti-Israel protests rocked Harvard’s campus in late 2023, would reportedly cost between $500 million and $1 billion.
The Trump administration views the institute as window-dressing and a meaningless step in its ongoing negotiations with Harvard, a person familiar with the administration’s thinking told the Journal.
The news comes as Harvard seeks to reach a deal with the Trump administration, which has cracked down on the university over what it calls the school’s “discriminatory” DEI policies and failure to protect Jewish students. The administration has frozen nearly $3 billion in federal funding to Harvard, threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and revoked the school’s ability to enroll international students. Harvard in response has twice sued the administration, with a court hearing set for July 21.
A Harvard spokesman told the Journal that the conservative center “will ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues, and will not be partisan, but rather will model the use of evidence-based, rigorous logic and a willingness to engage with opposing views.”
Though the Trump administration appears unsatisfied with Harvard, it is nearing a deal with Columbia University that would see the school recoup most of the $400 million in federal funding it lost in March. The draft agreement does not include some provisions initially demanded by the White House like a consent decree and reforms to Columbia’s governance structure, leaving the school’s critics unsatisfied, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
A 2023 Harvard Crimson survey found that less than 3 percent of Harvard College faculty identified as politically conservative, while another university survey revealed that only one-third of graduating seniors felt comfortable talking about controversial issues.
Harvard president Alan Garber in a May interview acknowledged the school’s lack of conservative and independent views as a “real problem.”
“In my view, the federal government is saying that we need to address anti-Semitism in particular, but it has raised other issues, and it includes claims that we lack viewpoint diversity,” Garber said, adding, “We think it’s a real problem if—particularly a research university’s—students don’t feel free to speak their minds, when faculty feel that they have to think twice before they talk about the subjects that they’re teaching.”
Trump on the campaign trail last year pledged to rein in progressivism on college campuses, which he said amounts to a “Marxist assault on our American heritage and Western civilization itself.”
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