Last Friday, Harvard University received a letter sent by email from the Trump administration which included a series of rental, admission and studies so expensive that school officials decided that they had no choice but to take the White House.
The university announced its intentions on Monday, triggering a tectonic battle between one of the most prestigious universities in the country and an American president. Then, almost immediately, came a frantic call from a Trump official.
The April 11 letter of the White House working group on anti -Semitism, said this official at Harvard, should not have been sent and was “unauthorized,” said two people familiar with the case.
The letter was sent by the interim general councilor of the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Sean Keveney, according to three other people, who were informed. Mr. Keveney is a member of the working group on anti -Semitism.
We do not know what prompted the letter to be sent last Friday. Its content was authentic, said the three people, but there were different accounts within the administration of how it had been poorly managed. Some people in the White House thought that she had been sent prematurely, according to the three people, who asked for anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly about internal discussions. Other members of the administration thought it was supposed to be broadcast among the members of the working group rather than sent to Harvard.
But his timing was consecutive. The letter arrived when Harvard officials thought they could always avoid confrontation with President Trump. During the previous two weeks, Harvard and the working group had engaged in a dialogue. But requests from the letter were so extreme that Harvard concluded that an agreement would ultimately be impossible.
After Harvard publicly repudiated the requests, the Trump administration raised pressure, freezing billions of federal school funds and warning that its tax exemption status was in danger.
A senior White House official said that the administration was next to the letter, qualifying the University’s decision to publicly repel excessive administration and blame Harvard for not having continued discussions.
“It was a professional fault on the side of Harvard lawyers not to win the phone and call the members of the working group on anti -Semitism to whom they had spoken for weeks,” said May Mailman, strategist of the main Policy of the White House. “Instead, Harvard participated in a victimization campaign.”
However, Ms. Mailman said that there is a potential course to resume discussions if the university, among other measures, follows what Mr. Trump wants and apologizes to his students for having favored a campus where there was anti -Semitism.
Mr. Keveney could not be joined to comment. In a statement, a spokesperson for the anti-Semitism working group said: “The working group and the entire Trump administration are under the guarantee of guaranteeing that the entities that receive dollars from taxpayers follow all civil rights laws.”
Harvard postponed the assertion of the White House that she should have checked from lawyers from the administration after receiving the letter.
The letter “was signed by three federal officials, placed on the official header paper, was sent to the email reception box of a senior federal official and was sent on April 11 as promised,” said Harvard in a statement. “The beneficiaries of such a correspondence from the American government – even when it contains radical requirements which are amazing in their overtaking – do not question its authenticity or its seriousness.”
The press release added: “It only remains for us what, among the recent words and acts of the government, were errors or what the government really wanted to do and say. But even if the letter was a mistake, the actions that the government has taken this week have real consequences” on students and employees and “the position of American higher education in the world”.
The letter shocked Harvard not only because of the nature of the requests, but because it was sent when the university leaders and the lawyers he hired to face the administration thought they could trigger a complete conflict with Mr. Trump.
For two weeks, Harvard’s lawyers, William Burck and Robert Hur, listened to Trump officials, in fairly wide features, expressed the concerns of the administration as to the way in which the school dealt with anti -Semitism and other questions.
As for the administration of this dialogue were three lawyers: Josh Gruenbaum, a senior official of the General Services Administration; Thomas Wheeler, the interim lawyer of the Ministry of Education; and Mr. Keveney.
The round trips lacked details on what the administration wanted Harvard to do. Last Friday, lawyers for the Trump administration said they would send Harvard a letter that presented more details.
Friday, at the end of the working day, the letter had not arrived. Instead, overnight, Harvard’s lawyers received a letter, sent from Mr. Keveney in an email, which was very different from that of the school.
He listed a series of requests that would reshape students and university life in a way that Harvard could never accept. Harvard publicly said on Monday that he could not welcome them.
Shortly after, Mr. Gruenbaum called one of Harvard’s lawyers, according to two people knowing the calls. At first, he said that he and Mr. Wheeler had not authorized the sending of the letter. Mr. Gruenbaum then slightly changed his story, saying that the letter was to be sent at some point, but not Friday when the dialogue between the two parties was still constructive, said one of the people.
A lawyer for Columbia University received a similar call from Mr. Gruenbaum at the same time, said two people with knowledge of the call. He, Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Keveney had also been engaged with Columbia about the changes that the working group wanted the university to adopt, and Mr. Gruenbaum wanted the lawyer for Columbia to know that the letter to Harvard was “unauthorized”, said the two people who know the appeal.
Mr. Gruenbaum did not respond to a message asking for comments.
Later Monday, Harvard’s company and senior managers were informed of Mr. Gruenbaum’s assertion that the letter should not have been sent. The briefing left many members on the side of Harvard convinced that the letter had been a mistake, three people familiar with the case said.
Harvard officials, many of whom worked in government earlier in their careers, were shocked as a letter as important – bearing the logos of three government agencies, with signatures of three senior officials below – can be sent by an error.
But at that time, there was no way to Harvard to cancel what had already been triggered. The university had already declared that it would repel requests from the letter. And despite the contenders that the letter should not have been sent, the Trump administration did not withdraw it.
In response to Harvard’s decision to fight, the White House announced that Mr. Trump was frozen $ 2.2 billion in school grants. In one day, he threatened to revoke Harvard tax exemption.
Maureen Farrell Contributed reports.
