Harvard University President Alan Garber has privately urged faculty members to reevaluate their messaging strategy after President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping 2024 victory. Expressing concern over the shifting political landscape, Garber emphasized the university's need to tone down the anti-conservative rhetoric that comes amid broader discussions about higher education's response to political polarization.
The Harvard Crimson reported that during a closed-door session of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Garber said he met with 40 members of Congress during his six trips to Washington, D.C., since becoming president. He said there has been bipartisan frustration with Harvard and acknowledged that he believes what critics say contains some truth and must listen to it with “empathy and humility.”
Garber said the turn against higher education in Washington posed a more significant threat to Harvard than anything.
During his remarks, Garber said that the University’s communications strategy has not worked as well as its leaders had thought. Garber said he saw the election results as an anti-elite repudiation by the American electorate. Harvard, he said, must listen to public criticism with “empathy and humility.” Garber’s conciliatory tone suggests he intends to take a diplomatic approach — rather than a defiant one — as he interacts with an incoming presidential administration that has Harvard in its crosshairs.
However, Garber did not explain how the university, which is predominantly liberal, would change its messaging toward students.
Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton said the University will continue to engage in Washington and with federal leaders to make the case for a partnership between the government and universities that supports students, vital research and innovation that fuel economic growth, and improvements in health and wellbeing.
Trump’s incoming National Institutes of Health leader, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, suggested he would link a university’s likelihood of receiving research grants to a ranking or measure of academic freedom on campus, threatening some of the country’s most prestigious institutions because of their hatred toward American and conservatives.
