When starting a reform process, the rule generally is: You only need to fire one person. After that, word gets around quickly.
It only took the Trump administration one action to impose the funding equivalent of a termination. Columbia University got the “set an example” treatment late last week. The White House announced Friday that they would immediately cancellation of $400 million in grants and other funding. The new Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism (JTFCAS) warned that they could eventually end billions of dollars in financial support for the school’s refusal to defend its Jewish students and faculty from organized anti-Semitic intimidation campaigns.
That got the attention of two other Poison Ivies yesterday. Harvard University, whose former president Claudine Gay told Congress that anti-Semitism depended on “context,” decided to impose an immediate hiring freeze in anticipation that the JTFCAS will target their federal income stream soon, if not next. Gay’s successor Alan Garber sent out a Dear Colleague letter announcing a hiring freeze, euphemistically titled “Financial Stewardship”:
Universities throughout the nation face substantial financial uncertainties driven by rapidly shifting federal policies.
Universities that allowed organizers to target Jews on their campuses will face them first. Also, it’s not just hiring that Harvard has frozen “temporarily,” but capital expenditures as well (via Power Line):
In recent months, we have worked closely with Schools and administrative units to prepare for changes in the revenues that support our mission. As part of Fiscal Year 2026 budget planning, which is under way, we have asked Schools and units to identify strategic adjustments in their spending to build the long-term capacity needed to advance academic priorities at a time of uncertain revenues. We are grateful to the faculty and staff at Schools and units across our campus who are working hard to make progress on this important undertaking.
We need to prepare for a wide range of financial circumstances, and strategic adjustments will take time to identify and implement. Consequently, it is imperative to limit significant new long-term commitments that would increase our financial exposure and make further adjustments more disruptive. Effective immediately, Harvard will implement a temporary pause on staff and faculty hiring across the University. In the coming days, we will work closely with the leadership of Harvard’s Schools and administrative units to help determine how to implement this guidance in extraordinary cases, such as positions essential to fulfilling the terms of gift- or grant-funded projects. We are also asking the leadership of Schools and administrative units to scrutinize discretionary and non-salary spending, reassess the scope and timing of capital renewal projects, and conduct a rigorous review of any new multi-year commitments.
Translation: The gravy train is about to derail. And let’s not forget that Harvard has an endowment that runs somewhere around $50 billion. It’s not just the biggest educational endowment in the US, it’s one of the largest endowments of any kind in the world. They can pay for their ‘capital renewal projects’ out of that fund for at least a few years, if not decades, without federal funding. And yet they are treating the prospect of a cut-off of those funds as at least a four-alarm drill, if not a fire.
For that matter, so is another Poison Ivy that got humiliated in a congressional hearing last year over their refusal to address anti-Semitic intimidation campaigns. The University of Pennsylvania, which has the sixth-largest endowment in the US at $20 billion, has also called a halt to the days of wine and roses in Academia:
The University of Pennsylvania said it was facing a reduction of about $240 million in research funding from NIH grants.
“Changes to federal research funding could significantly reduce our operating budget,” John L. Jackson Jr., the university’s provost, wrote to faculty.
And a few other schools have decided to follow suit, even without already being on the JTFCAS radar:
Several other schools with national prominence, such as the University of Notre Dame and the University of Vermont, have placed a hold on hiring, citing uncertainty with the federal government.
“As we seek to understand the executive orders, federal agency directives and other policy changes announced over the past several weeks, our decision-making will continue to be guided by our mission as a global Catholic research university,” Erin Blasko, a spokesperson with Notre Dame, said in an email.
The University of Vermont said in a statement last week that it would re-evaluate its hiring freeze in 60 days.
Worth noting: Notre Dame has the eighth-largest endowment in Academia at $17 billion. Why are these schools with large endowments suddenly so worried about federal income? Easy; they’d rather spend our money than theirs. And for a very long time, that’s exactly what these schools did.
Get ready for more financial reckonings in Academia. The JTFCAS sent warning letters to 60 schools today over their failures to abide by federal law in ensuring access for students regardless of religious affiliation. “All 60 colleges — which include high-profile institutions like Columbia University, Yale University and University of Southern California – are under investigation by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights,” reports Higher Ed Dive. Five of those investigations have apparently escalated:
Five of the listed universities — Columbia; Northwestern University; Portland State University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities — have been under investigation by the Education Department since early February.
At the time, the Education Department cited reports of “widespread antisemitic harassment” and said the investigations built on a Republican-led House report in October accusing high-profile universities of making “shocking concessions” to pro-Palestinian protesters who set up encampments last spring.
They made those “shocking concessions” for two reasons. First, the ruling clique at that time wished to pander to those radicals, which led to reason #2: The schools knew there would be no consequences for allowing a pogrom on their campuses.
Now the incentives have changed, and changed dramatically. Now that the new administration has made an example of Columbia, the rest of the schools are belatedly discovering that their entire financial model is now at risk. Let’s see if they still have enough econ faculty to teach them how to respond to changing incentives.
