U.S. President Donald Trump demanded an apology from the prestigious Harvard University for defying the demands of the Trump administration.
Harvard denied to comply with Trump's demands, and turned to legal advice from the law firm Quinn Emanuel and King & Spalding, the former of which has represented Elon Musk's Tesla. Billionaire Musk is a long time supporter of Trump and emerged as a major donor in the latest presidential election.
Trump has made overhauling changes to the structure of many U.S. administrations ever since he took office in January, including signing an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, major checks in obtaining visas and initiating a tariff war ensuing a stock-market crash.
Who is representing Harvard?
Harvard University has turned to Quinn Emanuel for legal counsel - the firm which has represented Elon Musk's Tesla in the past, and has connection with Trump and his allies.
The demands put forth by Trump's administration were rejected by Harvard University on Monday with the signature of William Burck of Quinn Emanuel and Robert Hur of rival firm King & Spalding, Reuters reported.
Burck and Hur said Harvard "will not surrender its independence" in the face of obstacles created by Trump.
Burck was a former White House lawyer for Republican President George W. Bush. He was also hired by the Trump Organization this January for ethical advice.
Hur also has ties with Trump, who nominated him in 2017 to serve as Maryland's U.S. attorney, according to Reuters.
What were the demands?
The varied demands are from a directive that was released on April 3 suggesting wide-ranging and thorough reforms.
It includes discontinuing the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices, conducting an audit of the study body, faculty and leadership on their views about diversity, changing curriculum, a ban on face masks - as they can be pro-Palestine protesters, suspending any students who participated in pro-Palestine protests, and cooperation in checking international students backgrounds to see if “hostile to the American values” or “supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, on Tuesday said to the media, “Trump wants to see Harvard apologise. And Harvard should apologise.” Furthermore, on Monday, the Department of Education said it was freezing about $2.3 billion in grants and $60 million in contract value.
“Why are the American taxpayers subsidizing a university that has billions of dollars in the bank already? And we certainly should not be funding a place where grave antisemitism exists,” Leavitt mentioned.
How has Harvard responded?
“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,” Harvard President Alan Garber said on Monday in a letter to the Harvard community.
He said that such demands are against the First Amendment rights and exceed “the statutory limits of the government라이브 바카라 authority under Title VI” protecting the students’ rights against gender, religion, ethnicity based discrimination.
“These ends will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate,” he wrote. “The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community,” he said.
