{shortcode-ab3f1af002951e620708e63db893b989b44d4520}

As word emerged Friday evening that Harvard had restarted negotiations with the Trump administration to resolve their monthslong feud, several faculty members said they were alarmed by the prospect of striking a deal with the White House.

Professors said their opinions on any agreement would ultimately depend in large part on the specifics of the deal. But some said the Trump administration couldn’t be trusted to abide by an agreement, making any deal worthless and a threat to Harvard’s independence.

“An agreement you make with this administration is not worth the paper it’s written on,” English professor Derek Miller said. “No matter what you sign, you can’t trust them.”

Donald Trump first announced the resumed talks in a Truth Social post on Friday, and further details — including a meeting at the White House last week — were subsequently reported by the New York Times.

Government professor Steven R. Levitsky said that even if an agreement could push the Trump administration to unfreeze billions of dollars in federal funds to Harvard and walk back threats to the University’s international students, striking a deal would still hurt American democracy writ large.

“Even if a relatively ‘good deal’ is negotiated — and I think you know, from Harvard’s standpoint, that may be the chance — it’s still a devastating outcome for democracy,” Levitsky said.

“This is an authoritarian mugging,” he added.

Not everyone was as pessimistic about a potential settlement with the White House. Several professors said that though they disagreed with the Trump administration’s actions, they thought the reopened talks were a sign that the White House might be willing to compromise.

“Hope this is true, and if so, the settlement corrects some real problems @Harvard while defending the necessary values of higher education,” former HMS Dean Jeffrey S. Flier posted on X, resharing an article about the negotiations.

The Trump administration’s onslaught against Harvard — which has taken the form of a flurry of investigations and punitive actions — led the University to file two lawsuits this spring: one over funding cuts, the other over the status of its international students.

Federal agencies have slashed billions of dollars in federal funding and attempted to end Harvard’s enrollment of international students. A judge granted preliminary injunctions blocking the administration’s attacks on international students until she reaches a final decision in the case, but Harvard has not asked for temporary relief in its funding lawsuit.

Harvard has positioned itself as a vocal defender of higher education, academic freedom, and its own institutional independence. In its rejection of demands that included screening international applicants for their beliefs, altering hiring practices to conform to a “viewpoint diversity” litmus test, and providing the federal government audits of its programs, the University denounced the asks as unconstitutional overreach.

That firm stance has won chants and cheers for University President Alan M. Garber ’76 — and given Harvard a singular place at the forefront of battles against Donald Trump.

Even so, Harvard’s fight with Washington began only after the University felt the Trump administration had pushed things too far. Garber has said he agrees that the White House has identified real problems. And the University has taken steps that align with some federal priorities — like discarding diversity offices, disrupting programs on religion and the Middle East, and ending a partnership with a Palestinian university.

To some faculty, the timing of Trump’s announcement looks like a sign that his campaign has begun to wear down, leaving the administration hunting for a way to quickly claim victory.

Comparative Literature professor David N. Damrosch said that the recent court victories mean now might be a better time than ever for Harvard to bring Trump to the negotiating table.

“A series of victories in the courts have probably injected a certain amount of realism in the U.S. administration about the limits of what they can reasonably ask for,” he said.

Continuing the fight indefinitely, Damrosch said, might not be financially sustainable.

“It’s become very clear that the University could win in the short term in the courts, but at tremendous long-term cost for the future,” he said.

The White House’s funding cuts and threats to international students have already had serious impacts on Harvard and its affiliates. Researchers have been forced to abruptly end long-term projects, and some international students and scholars returning to campus were turned away at Boston Logan International Airport. Even before Trump honed in on Harvard in April, the University had imposed austerity measures to deal with wide-scale federal funding cuts.

Still, it remains unclear what conditions, if any, faculty would find acceptable in an agreement with the White House.

Government and Sociology professor Theda R. Skocpol said she wasn’t surprised to hear that Harvard is considering a deal amid the significant financial pressure, but that Harvard can’t seem like it is handing over governance to Washington.

“I assume that it’s a tricky negotiation — that Harvard has to maintain basic principles about not ceding outside control,” Skocpol said.

Walter Johnson, a professor of History and of African and African American Studies, called news that Harvard might negotiate with the government “disheartening” and “shocking” in a statement.

“Providing them a beachhead within the university, whether it be a negotiated degree of involvement in hiring, admissions, or academic matters would be a disgraceful abdication of administrative responsibility and a gross violation of the principle of faculty governance,” Johnson wrote.

Government professor Ryan D. Enos, who has been a vocal advocate of resistance, said that taking a deal from the White House would look like acquiescence.

“It seems like Harvard is capitulating and is betraying the values that they had expressed when they were initially standing up to the Trump administration,” he said.

Several faculty said that from their view, no compromise with the White House would be acceptable.

“I think of this as a mugging, so a good deal is the mugger drops his gun and goes away,” Levitsky said.

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.