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The Harvard Corporation and the Harvard Board of Overseers — the University’s governing bodies— convened on campus over the weekend to prepare a response to the Trump administration’s $9 billion ultimatum.

The meetings, which began around 5 p.m. on Saturday, were regularly scheduled. But they come just two days after the Trump administration issued a list of demands for University President Alan M. Garber ’76: eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programming, ban masks at protests, and fully cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security — or risk losing billions of dollars in federal funding.

The threat marked a dramatic escalation in the White House’s campaign against Harvard, with officials demanding “immediate cooperation” in rolling out the changes, and cast a shadow over the weekend meetings, where Harvard’s highest officials have a chance to hash out their reply.

Members of the Corporation — Harvard’s highest governing body — and Overseers, who met at Loeb House and the Charles Hotel, did not answer questions about how Harvard plans to respond to Trump’s Thursday demands when approached by Crimson reporters on Saturday and Sunday.

In the lead-up to the weekend meetings, more than 1,500 alumni signed two separate petitions calling on the Corporation and Board of Overseers to ensure their decisions over the weekend enabled Harvard to “mount a coordinated opposition to these anti-democratic attacks.”

Nearly all 30 Overseers gathered for dinner in Loeb House on Saturday evening, ahead of Sunday meetings with Corporation members at the Charles Hotel and Loeb House.

Several Harvard administrators were also present at the Sunday meetings, including outgoing Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra. Khurana declined to comment on why he was present.

The weekend meetings come at the tail end of a seven-month-long search for the next dean of Harvard College. The announcement is expected very soon, according to a source familiar with the search process — but Corporation members declined to answer whether the pick would be made in their Sunday meetings.

Harvard Law School professor Jonathan L. Zittrain was also present at the Saturday dinner, but declined to comment on why he was invited. Zittrain, who directs Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, is one of nearly 90 Harvard Law School professors who signed a letter condemning the Trump administration’s efforts to penalize law firms that represent Trump’s political adversaries.

A University spokesperson declined to comment on the weekend meetings.

Correction: April 6, 2025

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Harvard Law School professor Jonathan L. Zittrain signed a faculty letter urging HLS Dean John C.P. Goldberg to condemn the Trump administration’s penalties on law firms. In fact, the faculty letter did not urge Goldberg to issue a condemnation.

—Staff writers Cam N. Srivastava and Samuel A. Church contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.