Harvard Seeks Assurances as Talks Restart in Washington

As talks between Harvard University and the Trump administration resume on Thursday in Washington over the president’s far-reaching effort to bring the nation’s oldest university to heel, the school’s new negotiator, the billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman, must navigate a fresh challenge over the government’s multiplying demands on higher education.

Last week, President Trump made a surprise announcement that Harvard and the government were near an agreement that would allow the university to continue to receive billions in research funds. But a day later, his administration sent letters to nine universities that asked campus leaders to embrace a plan that would align the Trump administration’s political agenda with preferred access to federal research dollars.

Harvard officials have since discussed internally the possibility of seeking additional assurances from the administration that the university will not be subject to further demands once an agreement has been signed, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Administration officials have said the letters to campuses were attempts to solicit feedback, not ultimatums. Still, the requests concerned Harvard leaders because three of the schools had either agreed to deals with the administration or were in negotiations.

The White House has wielded investigations and funding cuts to try to compel Harvard to adopt more conservative values, including stricter definitions of gender, deeper government access to student admissions data and more rigorous codes for student conduct.

For leaders at Harvard, the abrupt introduction of last week’s proposal to other schools underscored one of their most pressing questions about the value of hammering out a deal with the Trump White House. Why spend the extraordinary amount of time, money and political capital required for an agreement with Mr. Trump, some have asked, if his administration will return months later seeking more?

Spokesmen for the White House and Harvard declined to comment.

Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania were among the nine schools asked to review the administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”

Both schools unveiled individual deals in July that required policy changes — and, in Brown’s case, a $50 million pledge for work force programs — and helped unlock research funding that is vital to major American universities.

The University of Virginia, which also received a letter from the administration last week, has been seeking its own deal. But those talks were predicated on the administration’s insistence that the school’s governing board remove the university president, James E. Ryan. Mr. Ryan was viewed by Mr. Trump’s team as too sympathetic to the kind of diversity policies they have sought to root out, and he ultimately resigned under pressure.

At Harvard, there are concerns from faculty members and students, who have warned that the Trump administration is likely to renege on any deal or demand more concessions from the university after the fact.

“There are some people you don’t want to write a contract with, and I think businesses know that very well,” Oliver Hart, an economics professor at Harvard who won a Nobel Prize for his work on contract theory, said in an interview in July.

Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, a Washington-based advocacy group for higher education, said the compact being pushed by the administration was a setup.

“There isn’t internal coherence to it, except for one thing, which is, ‘We want institutions to do exactly what we want at any point in time,’” Dr. Mitchell said. “Today it’s these things. Next week, it may be a whole new set. This is a power play.”

The administration asked the nine universities to share opinions about the proposed compact by Oct. 20. While leaders from the University of Texas system have expressed interest in the agreement, no schools had agreed to the terms as of Wednesday, administration officials said.

The compact adds another wrinkle to the long list of issues for Harvard and the White House.

Both sides have privately expressed cautious optimism about the possibility of a final agreement, but planned to enter the meeting on Thursday instead with the goal of finding some measurable signs of progress that could help kick-start talks that stalled this summer, according to people familiar with the discussions. The two sides had agreed to the framework of a landmark settlement in August, but lost momentum as some inside the administration grew concerned that the terms were too favorable to Harvard.

Mr. Schwarzman’s involvement now in the negotiations is particularly unusual as previous White Houses have eschewed involvement from outsiders — who are not subject to government rules — to resolve high-stakes negotiations.

Mr. Schwarzman, a prominent Wall Street executive with a close relationship with Mr. Trump, has taken an active role brokering a deal in recent weeks for Harvard. Administration officials are expected to include Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s top civil rights attorney.