On Monday, after Harvard University publicly rejected a series of authoritarian requirements Trump administration officials who sent to Harvard last Friday, one of those officials tried out a new de-escalation technique: he called the university to be university and insisted that the letter had been sent by accident.
That original letter, sent on 11 April, ordered Harvard to meet countless bizarre requirements, including the discontinuation of diversity efforts, the restraint of or outright prohibition of student protests, the installation of the right -wing faculty that is essentially chosen by the administration and spying international students.
Harvard President Alan Garber condemned these requirements in a statement released on 14 April of 14 April and partially said: “No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, who they can admit and hire and which areas of study and research they can strive.
But the New York Times reported on Friday that shortly after Garber's letter had gone public, Josh Gruenbaum, a top lawyer at the General Services Administration, made 'a hectic call' to one of Harvard's lawyers and it it was said that the letter was 'unautorized' and should not have been sent.
From here things become cloudy. NYT reports that three different Trump officials, speaking anonymously, said there are “different reports” about what actually happened and why.
In the meantime, the policy point of the White House May Mailman told NYT effectively that the administration is in the letter. Strangely enough, she also said in a statement that “it was desperate on Harvard's lawyers” not to have called the White House before she was made public about the requirements of the letter.
In his own declaration to NYT, Harvard concluded the statement of Mailman and noted that the letter 'was signed by three federal officials, placed on an official letterhead, was sent from the E -mailinbox of a high federal officer and was sent on 11 April as promised. Recipients of such correspondence of the US government – even when the swords contains in their transmission, in their authenticity or seriousness. “
“It remains unclear to us what, under the recent words and acts of the government, mistakes or what the government actually meant to do and say. But even if the letter was a mistake, the actions that the government took this week have real consequences” on students and employees and “the status of American higher education in the world,” the statement continued.
Since Monday, the Trump administration has only escalated things. On Tuesday it froze the public financing of Harvard to punish the school for fighting back. And on Wednesday, Trump himself ordered the IRS to withdraw the tax -free status of the school. So far, that drastic step has not happened – and legal experts say that Harvard will probably win a legal challenge that it will yield when it happens.
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