Harvard is open to paying $500 million to settle with Trump admin, NYT reports
Harvard University is open to a potential $500 million settlement as a means of ending the months-long battle with the Trump administration, according to The New York Times .
The potential deal, based on interviews with four unnamed sources familiar with the negotiations, comes after Columbia University agreed to pay the federal government over $220 million in order to reinstate its federal grants and end investigations.
President Donald Trump has been pushing for Harvard to pay more than Columbia throughout the deal discussions, according to the outlet.
Despite Harvard's willingness, officials at the negotiating table remain reluctant to pay the federal government money and allow an outside monitor to determine whether they are complying, The New York Times reported.
The timing of a potential deal is unclear. A Harvard spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The talk of a settlement comes after Trump publicly announced in June that the federal government was in talks with Harvard over a "'mindbogglingly' HISTORIC" deal that would occur "over the next week or so."
Following the announcement, the Trump administration threatened to cut all funding from Harvard after finding that it violated civil rights law, stating that antisemitism has been able to "fester on Harvard's campus and has led a once great institution to humiliation."
It also comes at a time when the university has two federal lawsuits against the Trump administration over the federal stripping $2.6 billion of its federal dollars and the other challenges the Trump administration's attack on Harvard's ability to host and enroll international students .
Last week, Judge Allison D. Burroughs characterized a Trump administration argument as "a little bit mind-boggling."
While she hasn't issued a decision on the case yet, she pushed back on whether the federal government could cancel grants across the institution en masse without substantially proving that researchers or labs had engaged in antisemitism.
Trump, for his part, took to Truth Social to take aim at Burroughs that same day, calling her a "TOTAL DISASTER" and an "automatic 'loss' for the People of our Country."
He also said the federal government would appeal her decision when she ruled in the university's favor.
What has happened between the Trump admin and Harvard?
The Trump administration has gone after Harvard since April, cutting billions of dollars.
Demanding an overhaul of Harvard's leadership structure, admissions and hiring — the federal government warned the school could risk losing $9 billion in funding.
Harvard rejected those demands, stating they seek to "invade university freedoms long recognized by the Supreme Court."
Then the fight over funding occurred.
It began with a $2.2 billion funding freeze on April 14 after the school refused to comply with the federal administration's demands.
In response, Harvard filed a lawsuit on April 21, arguing that its constitutional rights had been violated by the government's threats to pull billions of dollars in funding.
Harvard President Alan Garber also signed onto a letter with hundreds of other university presidents pushing back against "government overreach and political interference" by the Trump administration.
At the beginning of May, the Trump administration said it would bar Harvard University from acquiring new federal grants while the school continues to refuse to comply with the administration's demands for change on its campus.
A few days later, eight federal agencies cut $450 million in grants and then the United States Department of Health and Human Services cut $60 million in grants from the university.
Harvard went on to amend its lawsuit against the Trump administration.
On May 16, a wave of nearly one thousand federal research grant terminations began , amounting to more than $2.4 billion, according to an analysis by Nature .
In response, Harvard established a new Presidential Priorities Fund, asking for donations in the midst of federal cuts.
Some of Harvard's schools, including its School of Public Health, took to social media to ask for donations after nearly every single federal grant had been terminated.
Other investigations and threats have been made against the institution, some of which have also focused on threatening the university's ability to enroll international students.
That is what the university's second lawsuit is about.
Most recently, the State Department opened an investigation into Harvard University's use of international visas.
The Department of Homeland Security has also subpoenaed Harvard over its failure to provide documents concerning the misconduct or criminal actions of foreign students.
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Read the original article on MassLive .
