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Harvard President Alan M. Garber has failed to meet the moment.

In a University-wide email sent on Monday night, Garber announced that Harvard would be engaging with the Trump administration in their efforts to “combat antisemitism” on campus — after Washington threatened over $8 billion in federal funding.

President Donald Trump is wielding federal funds as a political tool to silence pro-Palestine speech as the start of a larger quest to dismantle higher education as a whole. Garber’s conciliatory words reveal that he is seemingly willing to place federal funding over academic freedom and the safety of Harvard’s students.

This is not the leadership we need.

Garber knows what we all do — the Trump administration is not truly concerned about antisemitism. Both Vice President JD Vance and de facto DOGE chief Elon Musk were supporters of Germany’s far-right AfD party in the country’s election this year, with Musk saying it is time for Germany to stop focusing on “past guilt” immediately ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day. AfD leaders have been accused of advertising with Nazi symbols and have used Nazi slogans at rallies.

In 2022, Trump himself dined with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes alongside Ye, formerly Kanye West, after the rapper had made public antisemitic remarks. It is reckless to cede authority on an important issue to an administration so clearly acting in bad faith.

Indeed, the White House’s disingenuous invocation of antisemitism seems to mask its true, insidious aims. Just last week, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University graduate student, was abducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — apparently for no other crime than writing an op-ed calling for Tufts to divest from Israel. Many of my peers have asked the same of Harvard.

International students — particularly those who are Black and brown — have quickly become the primary targets of Trump’s attacks on pro-Palestine views. It seems any agreement with the White House would require Harvard to compromise with those responsible for this assault. No amount of money is worth allowing the Trump administration to decide what speech is acceptable.

As Ozturk and others at peer institutions are disappeared by ICE for their political views while authoritarianism lurks on Harvard’s doorstep, Garber has remained shamefully silent. In addition to failing to publicly condemn Trump, Garber’s Monday message fails to acknowledge that Trump is attacking higher education as a whole. JD Vance has previously delivered a speech entitled the “The Universities are the Enemy.” Elon Musk has declared that universities are “not for learning.”

We are dealing with an authoritarian government which fears universities seemingly because it knows that college graduates are more likely to oppose them. From attempts to abolish the Department of Education to attacks on colleges and universities across the country, Trump is following the autocrat’s playbook of making education a punching bag. Despite the White House’s claims of supporting students at Harvard victimized by antisemitism, Trump is only looking out for himself.

Indeed, the University’s narrow hope to protect valuable federal funding may be little more than a pipe dream. The administration has not restored funding to Columbia University, despite their compliance with Trump’s terms. More and more demands will likely be made of Harvard to keep the University under Trump’s thumb — Harvard cannot set a precedent of acquiescence, no matter how important leveraged funding may be.

Harvard College’s mission statement claims to inspire students “learning how they can best serve the world.” On Monday, University leadership apparently gave in to a government working for the exact opposite.

Garber must fight for Harvard — or pass the reigns to someone who will.

Adam N. Chiocco ’27, a Crimson Editorial comper, is a double concentrator in Philosophy and Government in Pforzheimer House.