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Yesterday Harvard sued the Trump administration and accepted applause from the left for leading the resistance to the administration’s demands of universities around the country. But it turns out that both sides of this argument have, at various times, been hoping for a compromise which would avoid an all-out confrontation. Initially it was Harvard that was looking for a deal.
Harvard hired the same lawyer that the law firm Paul Weiss used to make its deal with Mr. Trump. Over the past month, as it became clear that Mr. Trump was ratcheting up pressure on Harvard, the school’s president, Dr. Alan Garber, looked for other ways into the White House — including a potential meeting with Mr. Trump himself, according to three people briefed on the matter. In late March, he called Jared Kushner, a Harvard alumnus and the president’s son-in-law, to ask for help. Mr. Kushner said he could not help.
Harvard then made an offering of sorts to its critics. The school said the director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies would be leaving his position. Conservatives had been pushing for such a move for months, arguing that the center fomented antisemitic views on campus.
On April 3, the White House sent Harvard an early list of demands. The administration didn’t cut federal funding, as it had done at Columbia, and the fellows at Harvard took that as an encouraging sign.
