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Senior members of Harvard University’s faculty are pledging to donate a portion of their pay to the school as it opposes the demands of the Trump administration.
The announcement comes after the Trump administration froze more than $2 billion in federal funding for Harvard University. The school filed a lawsuit in response.
In a letter posted online, organizers asked senior faculty to commit 10% of their paycheck for the period of a year or until the funding situation is resolved.
“We are heartened by the University’s rejection of the Trump administration’s demands. We also recognize that the University now faces severe financial damage for its defense of academic freedom,” the letter read, in part.
The letter was publicly signed by Ryan Enos, Jeff Flier, Archon Fung, Oliver Hart, Rebecca Henderson, Steve Levitsky, Eric Maskin, Martha Minow, Dani Rodrik, Theda Skocpol, Steve Walt.
The specific use of any donated funds was not laid out. Organizers said they were acting quickly to establish a plan and asked that others sign the non-binding pledge privately to signal their support as they move forward with formalizing the process.
“We envision that faculty who have made the pledge will hold a vote and if the majority agrees that the university is making a good faith effort to use its own resources in support of staff, student, and academic programs, faculty will proceed with their donation,” the letter states.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president last year, was in Cambridge Monday, weighing in on the state of democracy and looking ahead to the future.
The university has become a target for the Trump administration, which has called on Harvard to end all preferences “based on race, color, national origin, or proxies thereof” and implement “merit-based” policies by August. In response, Harvard became the first university to openly defy the Trump administration as it uses its hold on colleges’ federal funding to press its political agenda.
The Trump administration has argued that universities did not do enough to check antisemitism at campus protests last year. Harvard leadership has said Harvard will not bend to the demands, calling it a threat to academic freedom and the autonomy of all universities.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration also announced federal investigations into the school and the Harvard Law Review based on allegations of race-based discrimination.
The school has pledged its own reforms after releasing an internal report on antisemitism and anti-Arab bias.
Oral hearings in Harvard’s funding lawsuit are tentatively set for the end of July.
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