Universities quietly negotiating with White House aide to try to avoid Harvard's fate, source says [View all]
Source: CNN Politics
Published 6:00 AM EDT, Sat May 31, 2025
CNN — College and university leaders have been privately negotiating with a deputy to top Trump aide Stephen Miller in hopes of avoiding the same aggressive targeting of Harvard University, a person familiar with the matter said, as the administration looks to escalate its attacks on the Ivy League institution and other schools.
The higher education leaders, who have had granular conversations with senior White House policy strategist May Mailman in recent weeks, are asking what signals they need to send to stay out of the administration’s crosshairs, the person said. Mailman works closely with Miller – an architect of the administration’s strategy to target colleges over concerns they are not sufficiently policing alleged antisemitism on their campuses.
In turn, a White House official said the administration is relaying to the leaders that “the money simply cannot and will not flow unabated as it has been – and that the universities are incubators of discrimination and the taxpayer cannot support that.” These conversations come as the administration is investigating dozens of other schools, and as some school leadership comes to Washington. The White House is looking to strike a deal with a high-profile school, said the first source, who is involved in the higher education response.
“They want a name-brand university to make a deal like the law firms made a deal that covers not just antisemitism and protests, but DEI and intellectual diversity,” this person said. “They want Trump to be able to stand up and say he made a deal with so-and-so – an Ivy League school, some sort of name-brand school that gives them cover so they can say, ‘We don’t want to destroy higher education.’” Asked if any of the schools are inclined to make such a deal, the source said, “Nobody wants to be the first, but the financial pressures are getting real.”
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/31/politics/universities-negotiate-trump-administration-harvard
"Price of eggs", "Kitchen table issues", "Working class".
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