Harvard is on the verge of caving in to Trump on the Rule of Law

Don't stop lawsuits against Trump

BACKGROUND

William C. Mao and Veronica H. Paulus, ”Harvard President Garber Tells Faculty He Is Not Considering a $500 Million Deal With Trump,” The Harvard Crimson, August 3, 2025 (updated August 4, 2025 (1:01 am).

2)Leo Gerdén, Tova L. Kaplan, and Karl N. Molden, Contributing Opinion Writers, “President Garber, a Bad Deal With Trump Will Not Protect Us,” The Harvard Crimson,August 5, 2025.

3)Michael S. Schmidt, Alan Blinder, and Michael C.Bender, ”Trump’s Deal-Making With Other Elite Schools Scrambles Harvard Negotiations; The university was open to spending $500 million, but a $50 million settlement with Brown has prompted new debates in Cambridge,” New York Times, August 4, 2025..

4James Rowles, “Harvard v. Trump in Boston Federal Court,” Trenchant Observations, July 22, 2025.

We need to understand what reaching agreement with the Trump Administration really means.

Harvard University, which has a very strong legal case that Donald Trump has acted illegally and unconstitutionally in withholding funds from the University, and in other actions, reportedly is now considering whether to reach a settlement with Trump that will release the funds he has withheld and stop his harassment of the University.

According to news reports, Harvard has been considering a “settlement” with Trump that would entail paying him $500 million dollars. But Harvard is having second thoughts now, not about the principles involved but rather about the price the University must pay for a settlement.

Trump has acted in a blatantly unconstitutional manner. Harvard has sued him in federal court in a case it is overwhelmingly likely to win.

A settlement with Trump would end the litigation, and the country’s best chance to uphold the Rule of Law in the face of Trump’s unconstitutional attempt to interfere in the core functions of a private university.

The symbolic value of Harvard pursuing its case and winning would be enormous. Seeing the legal challenge through to the end and mounting legal challenges to further unconstitutional actions by Trump would have a galvanizing effect among colleges and universities throughout the country. It would set an example that might well be followed in other sectors.

Trump knows this. That is why he is trying to reach “settlements” with universities and colleges from which he has unconstitutionally withheld federal funds.

So, in an age where Trump would have us believe everything is about money and everything has a price, even Harvard is reported to be considering selling out its principles if the price is right.

We should be clear: It is not President Alan Garber, the faculty, or the students who are anxious for Harvard to abandon its defense of the Constitution and the Rule of Law, but probably members of the Harvard Corporation whose board members have the ultimate say on how Harvard should be governed.

The membership of that board includes billionaires and mega-millionaires who come from a world where everything has a price and everything can be bought. Still, there are among them and other members of the Board men and women of principle.

One can only hope that they will defend the cultural endowment of Harvard, built on 389 years of dedication to the University’s motto, “Veritas” or Truth, which is infinitely more important than its financial endowment ofc$53 billion.

Harvard should stand tall, and defend the Truth, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law.

Harvard should not settle any of its lawsuits against Trump and the Trump Administration that it can expect to win.

If Trump persists in illegally withholding funds, Harvard should launch a massive fundraising campaign to make up for the shortfalls. Many who are not Harvard graduates might be willing to contribute to such a fund.

Other universities and colleges, if they have not already done so, should join Harvard’s lawsuit(s) against Trump and the Trump Administration.

This is a great moment of Truth.

Harvard is one of the greatest universities in the world.

It now has an excellent opportunity to show the world that the Emperor has no clothes—legally speaking. Harvard should, in the spirit of its best traditions, stand tall and not allow itself to be bought off by Trump—whatever the price.

FURTHER READING

1)Thomas L. Friedman, “The America We Knew Is Rapidly Slipping Away,” New York Times, August 4, 2025.

Updates

2)Zach Montague, “Stanford Newspaper Challenges Legal Basis for Student Deportations; A new lawsuit brought by a First Amendment watchdog group argues that the use of a rarely invoked immigration law to target pro-Palestinian demonstrators is unconstitutional,” New York Times, August 6, 2025.

2)” Angie Orellana Hernande, “Stanford newspaper sues Trump administration over student deportations; The lawsuit challenges Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s ability to revoke student visas and deem an individual deportable based on the content of their speech, Wahington Post, August 6, 2025 (9:38 p.m. EDT).

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About the Author

James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.

He studied the history of Nazi Germany at Stanford, and has studied and worked on human rights, judicial reform, and access to justice projects in many countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and in Afghanistan and Russia. At Harvard Law School, he taught a course on “Law, Human Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America”.

At the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS, he worked on human rights cases involving forced disappearances, executions, and torture in a number of authoritarian countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Recent Books by the Author

James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024). Available on Amazon, and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.

James P. Rowles, Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Attention, Damn It! Advice for Undecided Voters and Voters Leaning Toward Trump (2024). Available on Amazon,and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.

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