The John Harvard statue on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., May 23, 2025. (Reuters/Faith Ninivaggi)
- President Trump said a historic deal with Harvard may be near, praising the university’s cooperation in ongoing federal negotiations.
- Harvard filed lawsuits alleging Trump retaliated over free speech and governance issues, seeking to protect $2.5 billion in funding.
- A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s order barring international students at Harvard, halting enforcement while legal challenges play out.
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BOSTON – President Donald Trump said on Friday his administration has been working with Harvard University and could announce deal over the next week to resolve the White House’s campaign against the country’s oldest and richest university.
Trump in a post on his social media platform Truth Social said the Ivy League school has “acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations, and appear to be committed to doing what is right.”
“If a Settlement is made on the basis that is currently being discussed, it will be ‘mindbogglingly’ HISTORIC, and very good for our Country,” Trump wrote.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s administration has said it is trying to force change at Harvard and other top-level universities across the U.S., saying they have been captured by leftist “woke” thought and become bastions of antisemitism.
Harvard Files Two Lawsuits
Harvard has filed two separate lawsuits seeking to unfreeze around $2.5 billion in funding and to prevent the administration from blocking the ability of international students to attend the university.
Harvard alleges that Trump has been retaliating against it, violating its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, because the school refused to accede to the administration’s demands to control the school’s governance, curriculum and the ideology of its faculty and students.
Harvard and the administration have been waiting for a federal judge in Boston to rule whether she would continue to block implementation of a proclamation that Trump recently signed barring foreign nationals from entering the U.S. to study at the university.
Before Trump’s social media post on Friday, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs issued an injunction that would prevent the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from immediately revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students while the agency seeks to do so via a months-long administrative process.
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(Reporting by Nate Raymond and Christian Martinez, editing by Bhargav Acharya and David Gregorio)
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