WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration is close to reaching a deal with Harvard University, which it has targeted with a series of investigations and billions of dollars in funding cuts as it presses for changes to its policies and governance.
A truce with the country’s oldest and wealthiest college would end a clash that has tested the independence of America’s colleges.
Trump came into office saying he would cut funding for schools that defied his agenda, vowing to eliminate “wokeness.” His pressure campaign zeroed in on the Ivy League institution after it rebuffed his demands.
Trump initially said a deal had been reached but then said officials were “close to finalizing” the agreement. “We haven’t done it yet,” he said at the White House.
Trump said the agreement includes a $500 million payment from Harvard that would be used to create “a giant trade school, a series of trade schools that would be run by Harvard.” Trump described it as an investment to revive trade schools and produce workers for American plants.
“They’re going to be teaching people how to do AI and lots of other things,” Trump said.
Harvard and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A deal would open the door to a resolution of sanctions that have included cuts to more than $2.6 billion in Harvard’s research grants, losses of federal contracts, and efforts to cut off the school’s ability to enroll foreign students.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Boston ordered the Trump administration to reverse the cuts to research funding, ruling the cuts amounted to illegal retaliation for Harvard’s rejection of the administration’s demands. The government had tied the funding freezes to Harvard’s delays in dealing with antisemitism, but the judge said the university’s federally backed research had little connection to discrimination against Jews.
The Trump administration previously has struck agreements with Columbia and Brown to resolve investigations into allegations of civil rights violations and restore federal research funding.
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