School districts across the US are facing the same decision as institutions of higher learning: allow the government to censor their instruction or stand up for themselves and lose federal funding. As Harvard University and Columbia University demonstrated by taking opposite approaches, there is really only one choice: fight.
That is because US President Donald Trump’s administration has demonstrated it is not negotiating in good faith. Each time an educational institution engages with the White House, the White House shifts the goal posts — changing its justifications and changing its list of demands.
After months of negotiating with Harvard and initially setting some reasonable conditions, the administration on Friday last week issued a list of demands that read like a ransom note. The assortment of commands required the university to turn over confidential hiring and admissions data; submit to “viewpoint” audits of university operations; “reduce the power” of students and faculty whose views the administration considered too influential; and impose undefined “viewpoint diversity” on its departments.
Illustration: Constance Chou
The demand letter from three Trump administration officials cited “federal civil rights laws” as justification for their dictates. On Monday, an administration spokesperson said that the White House was acting to protect students it claims were unfairly treated because of “unchecked anti-Semitism,” “racially motivated violence” or “dangerous racial discrimination.”
Then on Wednesday, Trump himself offered a different rationale on his Truth Social platform.: “Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains.’”
This shifting justification is revealing. The real goal is not fairness. It is control — and it is part of a larger executive branch broadside against education. A week earlier, a different demand letter had landed in the e-mail boxes of school superintendents across the nation. On April 3, the US Department of Education gave school districts until Thursday next week to “certify” that they have shuttered all programs relating to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or lose federal funding.
Federal funds make up about 10 percent of K-12 funding. It mostly goes toward assisting low-income schools, funding career and technical education programs, and helping students with disabilities.
Now the education department’s Office for Civil Rights is threatening to withhold that money from schools that allow “the continued use of illegal DEI practices,” without defining what those are. The April 3 letter simply suggests that “certain” efforts violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs.
If the White House were truly concerned about fairness, anti-Semitism or civil rights violations, it could have launched Title VI and Title IX investigations and demanded proof that antidiscrimination laws are being enforced. If those investigations found violations, the administration could have given educators the opportunity to respond — due process — and then ordered remedies and penalties.
The executive branch chose none of those options. Instead, it is circumventing that process to radically reshape education by directing the teaching, hiring and admissions decisions at public and private universities, and to censor what is taught in state and local public schools. The ultimate result could be schools that silence ideas, restrict books and end courses with which the government disagrees.
Initially, many schools were reluctant to stand against federal overreach because of the extent to which K-12 districts and universities rely on federal money, but then it became clear they would get nothing for capitulating.
Columbia University learned that the hard way. In an attempt to restore US$400 million in government funds, the university agreed to allow the administration to interfere with its operations, including placing the university’s Middle Eastern studies department under new oversight and creating a security force empowered to make arrests. But once the ink was dry on that deal, Trump’s team demanded more.
The administration is now reportedly prepared to install federal oversight of the university — and the university is beginning to indicate that there will be lines it will not cross.
For its part, Harvard hired some top-gun lobbyists and tried to avoid a face-off with the government. It agreed to work with the Trump administration when the requests were reasonable, but when it was presented with the list of demands that would turn the university into a subservient think tank, Harvard refused to yield.
“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” university president Alan W. Garber said in a statement on Monday.
Within hours of receiving Harvard’s response, the Trump administration announced it was withholding US$2.2 billion in federal contracts and grants to the school and its affiliates. Another US$6.8 billion is at stake. By Wednesday, in another retaliatory move, the Internal Revenue Service was reportedly making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of the university.
Even for a school with a US$53 billion endowment, this is not chump change. Federally sponsored research makes up 11 percent of Harvard’s revenue. The university has already lined up lawyers to fight the administration in court.
Now, K-12 schools face a similar choice: Bow to pressure and save their funding (and potentially invite even more pressure) or fight back, knowing the fight could be costly.
Some states have made the same calculation as Harvard. According to an analysis by Education Week, 11 states — all led by Democratic governors — have declined to sign the certification. Sixteen states and Puerto Rico have said they intend to sign it. The remaining 23 have not announced their intentions.
The opponents have focused on how the administration is trying to silence speech and turn civil rights on its head.
In an anonymous Substack post, someone identified as “District Superintendent” summed up the absurdity of the administration’s logic: “Your letter paints equity as a threat. But equity is not the threat. It’s the antidote to decades of failure. Equity is what ensures all students have a fair shot. Equity is what makes it possible for a child with a speech impediment to present at the science fair. It’s what helps the nonverbal kindergartner use an AAC [augmentative and alternative communication] device. It’s what gets the newcomer from Ukraine the ESL [English as a second language] support she needs without being left behind.”
Others have questioned the legality of the federal government’s ultimatum. Washington State Superintendent Chris Reykdal questioned the education department’s authority to demand his state “cede” to the federal government its right to determine its own education system. (Almost all funding for public education comes from local taxes.)
“We will not sign additional certifications that lack authority, lack clarity, or are an assault on the autonomy of states and local school districts,” he said last week. “It would be irresponsible to do so.”
Benjamin Jones, general counsel for the Wisconsin Department of Instruction, called the order potentially “unauthorized, unlawful and unconstitutionally vague.”
The funding fight with schools and universities is likely headed for a showdown in court. In the meantime, the Trump administration may come up with even more demand letters. But the message Harvard and these state education leaders are sending is powerful: Fighting might be costly, but surrender is worse.
Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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