One day after the Trump administration announced that it is cutting another $450 million in grants to Harvard University, the Ivy League school says its president will be taking a pay cut.
A Harvard spokesperson confirmed that President Alan Garber is taking a voluntary 25% pay cut between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026. The Harvard Crimson, which was the first to report the news, said Harvard presidents typically earn over $1 million annually.
Earlier this month, dozens of tenured Harvard professors said they would donate 10% of their salaries "as our contribution to the university's financial resources while it legally contests these attacks."
Harvard filed a lawsuit in April after the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal funding. President Trump has also said his administration will revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status, a move that would leave Harvard research "severely impaired," Garber told The Wall Street Journal.
The uncertainty over federal funding caused Harvard to freeze hiring back in March. The university said losing out on federal dollars could result in cuts to staffing and life-saving research at Harvard Medical School. But the school has rejected the administration's proposed conditions for resuming funding, which include changes to leadership and halting diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
A letter to Harvard from the federal government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism on Tuesday said the school has "repeatedly failed to confront the pervasive race discrimination and anti-Semitic harassment plaguing its campus."
"Harvard's campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination," the letter said. "There is a dark problem on Harvard's campus, and by prioritizing appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school's claim to taxpayer support."
Garber apologized after the school released a report on antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus. But Harvard says it has since made changes and is compliant with federal law.
Neal Riley