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As he finished lunch in the private dining room outside the Oval Office on April 1, President Trump floated an astounding proposal: What if the government simply canceled every dollar of the nearly $9 billion promised to Harvard University?
The administration’s campaign to expunge “woke” ideology from college campuses had already forced Columbia University to strike a deal. Now, the White House was eyeing the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.
“What if we never pay them?” Mr. Trump casually asked, according to a person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”
The moment underscored the aggressive, ad hoc approach continuing to shape one of the new administration’s most consequential policies.
Mr. Trump and his top aides are exerting control of huge sums of federal research money to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system, which they see as hostile to conservatives and intent on perpetuating liberalism.
Their effort was energized by the campus protests against Israel’s response to the October 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas, demonstrations during which Jewish students were sometimes harassed. Soon after taking office, Mr. Trump opened the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, which is scrutinizing leading universities for potential civil rights violations and serving as an entry point to pressure schools to reassess their policies.
