Bass Pass: How Harvard plans to seize Trump

From the moment Donald Trump was re -elected, Harvard University has been scrambling to face what was seen as an existential threat posed by the new administration.

Trump targets elite universities on a group of fronts, starting with diversity initiatives and dealing with protests supporting the Palestinians to billions of dollars in helping students And government support. Last year, federal scholarships constituted 11 % of Harvard’s operating revenues and paid two -thirds of the research she sponsored. In addition, Trump suggested imposing taxes on the massive endowment of the university of $ 53 billion, up to 35 % – a threat, Harvard President, Alan Garper, said, “keep me at night.” On Monday, due to “rapidly changing federal policies”, the university announced that it publishes the freezing of employment, which reduces admission to some postgraduate programs, and issuing directive at the university level to reduce spending.

“This is a crisis. “It is the greatest fatal threat faced by the higher education sector, undoubtedly.”

Harvard University hopes to reduce the damage of Trump’s expected discounts by forming alliances with people close to him. One of the pressure groups noted: “strange clutches.” “Get used to that.”

In response, Harvard University has formulated a new pressure strategy – one, unlike anything the university has ever done. According to interviews with more than twenty pressure groups, financiers, professors and graduates, Harvard’s plan is three times. First, the university has I rented Ballard Partners, the leading pressure company at Magaworld, to represent its interests in Washington. Second, Harvard University is exploring ways to receive itself with the Trump inner circle by building alliances with the conservatives who trust it. Third, the school joined talks with colleges and universities in the red states, and is looking forward to providing a case stating that the proposed discounts of Trump will not only hurt the ivy association, but also local economies in the deep red regions.

Such moves are out of Harvard, which has long been considered itself in a league in itself. “Harvard has an opportunity to reduce the damage of the Trump administration,” says Jeff Hoser, Harvard, who is the CEO of the Dawn Al -Dawl Al -Dawab project. “But it will only be solidarity with other institutions with different public profiles. It is more than that which may realize.”

Harvard University was intensifying its efforts to pressure even before Trump’s victory last November. In 2024, the school spent more pressure than it was in the past 15 years. But those who look at Harvard’s new strategy say it started seriously two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, when Harvard University of Partners in Berard hired as one of the leading pressure groups. The shrewd-Barain Palar, the founder of the company, was a close Trump ally who maintains an office on the road from Mar Lago. What’s more, Suzy, Bam Bondi – Trump Chief of Staff and Public Prosecutor – both of whom are slag.

Hillary Paraceth, a Harvard, who is the CEO of Opensecrets, a non -partisan group that tracks the political impact, says Ballard’s employment indicated Harvard’s willingness to “play Trump’s rules.” She adds that the pressure company gives Harvard a “direct line to the oval office”.

Harvard’s first priority is to know where the cuts are likely to come, and any programs may be targeted. “There is a large educational curve that comes with a new administration, especially the Trump administration,” says Dan McVul, a member of the pressure groups in Bald, who works at Harvard’s account. “It seems that the information is the most valuable thing. What is the next shoe that should be dropped? How do we treat this? How do we respond to canceling the next grant?”

While Harvard’s contract with Ballaard will not be public until April, it is not cheap. According to three people familiar with the deal, the university is on the right path to push the pressure company well in the six numbers this year. Justin Saifi, the partner in Bald, described his agreement with Harvard as “a monthly spare is considered familiar to our caliber companies on K Street in Washington.”

Other universities follow Harvard’s progress. General records indicate that higher education institutions are employing pressure groups with more than twice the pace they made after Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, or when Trump won his first term in 2016. Among those who brought new pressure groups in recent weeks, Colombia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Oklauma State University, Arizona State.

Besides employing Ballard, Harvard University explores ways to achieve ways in the Trump inner circle. According to two people who have the knowledge of the discussions, the school is considering inviting Trump loyalists to speak on the campus, as a means of sharp charges of liberal bias and to obtain the administration. In interviews with BI, some pressure groups and experts in government relations suggested that Trump’s invitation or Vice President JD Vance to present a starting letter at Harvard University, or hosting Maga characters at Kennedy School at Harvard University. “You make yourself a smaller goal if you do this,” says one of the pressure groups in Washington.

Finally, Harvard University seeks to build alliances with colleges and universities of the red countries, to present a unified front in Washington. The message, according to several people familiar with the talks, is that the discounts on federal research grants and student assistance will kill jobs and the chances of the short circle of innovation in all fifty states. “A great way to harm the local economy is a university kicking in the teeth,” says one of the educational pressure groups.

Hope is that the institutions of red states can raise the issue to support higher education for Republicans who represent them in Congress. Senator Katie Brett of Alabama, for example, has already occurred against the proposed cuts to the national health institutes that will deeply affect the University of Alabama.

The insiders say that such alliances are the new base for universities and colleges. One of the pressure groups with years of experience in higher education notes: “strange clutches”. “Get used to that.”

However, the new strategy is risky for Harvard. Providing alliances with Trump supporters can anger some of the most prominent donors in school, and to raise disturbances between students and faculty members. Alison B. Farrell, Harvard Crimson’s opinion writer Call The university is “not complicit” with the new administration. She wrote: “If Harvard survives by moving to Trump, she has lost the reason for her existence – she can no longer claim that it is an institution devoted to searching for the truth and defending it.” One of the educational pressure groups – who spoke, like many, called with Business Insider, provided that his identity is not disclosed to preserve their professional relations – the new Harvard strategy as “an agreement with Satan”.

Although this may be a common point of view on campus, a few professors support Harvard’s efforts to make her case in Trump’s terms. Avi Lub, a famous theoretical physicist who was critical of dealing with the university with protests supporting the Palestinians last year, sees a chance to remind Trump that research institutions such as Harvard play a decisive role in leading American scientific discoveries and innovation. “Make the flag wonderful again!” He says. “Science is not the occupation of elites. The Trump administration must understand this.”

Unless Harvard University can find a way to maintain the flow of federal support that helps to ensure its operations and research, students and faculty will be the ones who pay the price. Federal assistance can mean less strict budgets, lower functions, and less student giving. “It is an order, but Trump can harm you,” says one of the Washington -based pressure groups. “You are trying to reduce risk.”

In addition to traditional pressure, universities and colleges are trying to reach Trump’s basic electoral districts. The ideas that were floating up the Trade Advertising Department during the NCAA basketball championship include in addition to the reservation of school principals on conservative outlets such as Fox News and Joe Rogan’s Podcast. Cereakios University, for example, works Ads On the metro trains in the country’s capital, it tells its position as the “only national warriors resources center in higher education”. After the President of Yashiva University, Rabbi Arie Berman, Delivery Difference in Trump’s inauguration, school Take out On Facebook and Instagram to highlight the event.

Although some universities are keen to work with Harvard, others see value in themselves from Ivy Legue institutions that drew Trump’s anger as strongholds for “Wokeness”. Isaac Kamola, a professor of political science at the Treente College that leads the Center for Defense for Academic Freedom, says that schools should mention government officials “not to mix higher education in America with Harvard.”

After Trump canceled $ 400 million of scholarships and federal contracts to Colombia, Harvard University announced the freezing of employment due to “rapidly changing federal policies”.

However, Harvard’s deep pockets and their affiliation with Bald means that it is unlikely that the red state universities will reject an invitation to work together. “There is strength in teamwork, and this is going in both directions of Harvard University,” says one of the educational pressure groups.

The elite schools are likely to escalate in the coming months. The Trump administration is investigating 60 schools, including Harvard University, because of its dealings with “anti -discrimination and discrimination” during the campus protests against the war in Gaza. Last week, the administration announced that it was canceling $ 400 million of grants and federal contracts to Colombia – another school on the list – and warned that more discounts are likely. In a statement of Business Insider, the White House criticized what it calls “a lot of waste, fraud and abuse of use of taxpayer money in higher education. (Harvard University rejected suspension requests.)

Meanwhile, the university remains a preferred perforated bag for the right. Last month, Steve Bannon – one of Harvard’s youth – came to a conference held near Harvard Square to strike the university. “We need to go to these elite institutions and cut all the money,” Bannon told the Conservative Students Association. “Once this money is cut, this is the bitch of the bitch. They will start attention.”

The conference was partially sponsored by Funder Enabler and billionaire graduate Ken Griffin, a Metadonor Whether to Harvard or Republican Causes. Griffin, whose name appears at the Faculty of Graduate Studies for Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, announced that he blocks new contributions until Harvard University decides to “embrace Western values”, ignore “hot snow flakes”, and end what he calls “Dei’s agenda that seems to not contain a real end.”

Looking at the current political climate, Harvard and other elite schools have no illusions that they can give up tsunami from the discounts proposed by the White House. Currently, Harvard focuses on ways to reduce damage. Therefore, the more Trump’s allies that can avoid him, the better. “This will be a sensitive dance. Harvard cannot stumble,” says a prominent donor at Harvard University who supports Trump.

Dave Leifena He is the journalist investigating Washington, DC. He was a reporter and editor in Business Insider until 2022.