Harvard University president Alan Garber said during an interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt on Wednesday that he had no choice but to fight the Trump administration after Harvard announced it was suing the president over the funding freeze.
“Is this a fight you can win?” Holt asked. Garber responded, “I don’t know the answer to this question, but the stakes are so high that we have no choice.”
Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday over its “unlawful” multibillion-dollar freeze of research funding to the university. The move comes just one day after the Trump administration planned to cut another $1 billion in federal grants and contracts to the university, according to the Wall Street Journal, which is in addition to the $2.2 billion freeze that was announced last week.
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“We are defending what I believe is one of the most important linchpins of the American economy and way of life — our universities,” Garber said during the interview.
He acknowledged that Harvard had an antisemitism problem, but questioned the relationship it had with research funding at the university.
“I would say at Harvard, we have a problem with antisemitism. We take it very seriously, and we are trying to address it. There’s no doubt about the severity of that problem. We don’t really see the relationship to research funding at Harvard and other universities. They are two different issues,” Garber said.
The Ivy League school president argued that the Trump administration’s actions were government overreach.
“What they are indicating is that they want to directly review who we hire on our faculty. That has implications for what kinds of views can be expressed on campus. They also want to be able to tell us who we need to fire, and they also want to intervene in our admissions processes. That is what we are objecting to,” Garber said.
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In the 51-page complaint obtained by Fox News Digital, Harvard accused the Trump administration of unlawfully freezing billions in research funding to pressure the university into restructuring its governance, academic programs and hiring practices.
“The tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote in the Monday filing.
Holt also asked how much pain Harvard could absorb in this fight. Garber admitted he wasn’t sure but emphasized that they couldn’t compromise on the basic principles of the First Amendment.
Fox News’ Stepheny Price contributed to this report.
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