California Gov. Gavin Newsom Demands Resignation of Harvard President Over Potential Trump Settlement

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has called for Harvard University President Alan Garber to resign, citing reports that the chief executive is heading toward a deal with the Trump administration that would restore federal funding to Harvard in exchange for the school’s agreeing to conservative demands for addressing campus antisemitism and shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

“You don’t work with Donald Trump — only FOR Donald Trump,” Newsom posted on Tuesday, writing on X. “Looks like Harvard has chosen to surrender. Alan Garber must resign. An absolute failure of leadership that will have demonstrable impacts to higher education across our country. He should be ashamed.”

He added, “California will never bend the knee.”

Newsom’s remarks followed a series of reports by The New York Times which said that Garber is prepared to shell out $500 million or more to settle Harvard’s dispute with the Trump administration, which began when it impounded over $3 billion in federal research contracts and grants from the institution’s coffers as punishment for its alleged refusal to quell antisemitic activity and discrimination on campus. US President Donald Trump has said Harvard will regain access to federal money if it agrees to a wishlist of policy reforms that Republican lawmakers have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists.

In a letter to Harvard — which Garber later released it to the public — the Trump administration called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” It also implored Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”

According to reports, Garber has told faculty that he will not settle and has resolved to continue on fighting the federal government in court even as Harvard faces a $1 billion budget shortfall caused by the confiscation of funds. Amid this cash crunch Harvard has resorted to leveraging its immense wealth to borrow exorbitant sums of money. In March it issued over $450 million in bonds as “part of an ongoing contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances.” It offered another $750 million in bonds to investors in April, a sale that is being managed by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

According to the Harvard Crimson, Garber has insisted that the Times reporting is erroneous.

“In a conversation with one faculty member, [he] said that the suggestion that Harvard was open to paying $500 million is ‘false’ and claimed that the figure was apparently leaked to the press by White House officials,” the Crimson said, noting that the Times believes its reporting is on the mark. “In any discussions, Garber reportedly said, the university is treating academic freedom as nonnegotiable.”

Garber’s apparent assurances to faculty that the university will not concede to Trump for financial relief came as it took conciliatory steps that seem aimed at reversing an impression that it is doctrinally far left, as well as anti-Zionist. In July, it announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions and closed its DEI offices, transferring their staff to other sections of the university. These moves came after it “paused” a partnership in March with a higher education institution located in the West Bank. Some reports, according to the Crimson, suggest that Harvard may even found a “new conservative research institute.”

Newsom, whose name has been floated as a potential candidate for president in 2028, has emerged as a vocal opponent of Trump’s efforts to reform higher education, describing, for example, the administration’s cancelling $584 million in funding for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as “disgusting political extortion.”

However, schools such as Brown University and Columbia University reached a middle ground with the federal government.

In July, Brown University announced that it agreed to pay $50 million and enact a series of reforms put forth by the Trump administration to settle claims involving alleged sex discrimination and antisemitism. The government is rewarding Brown’s propitiating by restoring access to $510 million in federal research grants and contracts it impounded.

Per the agreement, shared by university president Christina Paxson, Brown will provide women athletes locker rooms based on sex, not one’s self-chosen gender identity — a monumental concession by a university that is reputed as one of the most progressive in the country — and adopt the Trump administration’[ definition of “male” and “female,” as articulated in a January 2025 executive order issued by Trump. Additionally, Brown has agreed not to “perform gender reassignment surgery or prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to any minor child for the purpose of aligning the child’s appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex.”

Regarding campus antisemitism, the agreement calls for Brown University to reduce anti-Jewish bias on campus by forging ties with local Jewish Day Schools, launching “renewed partnerships with Israeli academics and national Jewish organizations,” and boosting support for its Judaic Studies program. Brown must also conduct a “climate survey” of Jewish students to collect raw data of their campus experiences.

Only days before, Columbia University agreed to pay over $200 million to settle claims that it exposed Jewish students, faculty, and staff to antisemitic discrimination and harassment — a deal which secures the release of billions of dollars the Trump administration impounded to pressure the institution to address the issue.

US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon commented on the resolution, saying it is a “seismic shift in our nation’s fight to hold institutions that accept American taxpayer dollars accountable for antisemitic discrimination and harassment.”

Claiming a generational achievement for the conservative movement, which has argued for years that progressive bias in higher education is the cause of anti-Zionist antisemitism on college campuses, she added that Columbia has agreed to “discipline student offenders for severe disruptions of campus operations” and “eliminate race preferences from their hiring and mission practices, and DEI programs that distribute benefits and advantages based on race.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.