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As Harvard Battles Trump, Its President Will Take a 25% Pay Cut
Harvard University, which is clashing with the Trump administration over its academic independence and the withdrawal of billions of dollars in research funding, said on Wednesday that its president had chosen to cut his own pay by 25 percent starting later this year.
The university has not disclosed specifics about its compensation package for the president, Alan M. Garber, who became Harvard’s permanent leader last year. His recent predecessors were paid around $1 million a year.
Whatever it amounts to in dollar terms, though, the pay reduction is a symbolic gesture compared with the scale of the university’s fight with the federal government, which has already moved to block more than $2.6 billion in funding for Harvard.
A university spokesman, Jonathan L. Swain, said Dr. Garber’s salary would be reduced starting July 1, when Harvard’s next fiscal year begins. The university, which has already halted new hiring and suspended merit raises for many employees, said that other Harvard leaders were planning contributions to the school.
The university acknowledged Dr. Garber’s decision the day after it expanded its lawsuit against the Trump administration.
The government made a range of intrusive demands of Harvard last month, asserting that the university had, among other things, not done enough to combat antisemitism. The university has sharply contested those accusations. Then last week, Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said that Harvard would not be eligible for any more federal grants.
Legal experts have cast doubt on the viability of Ms. McMahon’s decree, and many of them believe that Harvard has a strong legal case to reverse the cuts the Trump administration has already made. Even so, Harvard, which has routinely received hundreds of millions of dollars a year in federal research funding, is preparing for turmoil as long as President Trump remains in office.
In the first months of Mr. Trump’s second term, Harvard has already had to scale back or eliminate some research programs, including efforts to study tuberculosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease and radiation sickness, because of federal funding cuts. The university’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, faced with some of the most significant funding losses, is eliminating desktop phones, limiting catering, reducing security and cutting back on purchases of new computers. The school has also cut back on leased office space, slots for doctoral students and a shuttle that ferries employees between offices.
The Crimson, the Harvard campus newspaper, first reported Dr. Garber’s pay decision.
A sense of campus solidarity in the funding fight extends beyond Harvard’s top ranks. Ninety tenured professors have pledged to take 10 percent pay cuts in order to help Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, weather the Trump administration’s onslaught. Ryan D. Enos, a professor of government and a leader of the group, said the university had expressed its gratitude.
The group came together, Dr. Enos said, in recognition that some Harvard employees could be harder hit than others by the federal cuts.
In a statement, the professors, some of whom have not been named publicly, said their offer to work for less pay signaled “our commitment as faculty members to use means at our disposal to protect the university and, especially, staff and students who do not have the same protections.”
new video loaded: Federal Agents Detain Man During New York City Raid
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transcript
Federal Agents Detain Man During New York City Raid
Masked federal agents detained a man in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, handcuffing him while he faced the wall of a building.
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“Just back up, please.” “I’m not doing nothing.” “Just back up.” “You’re asking me questions. What’s up? I’m from Brooklyn.” “You can film, you can film.” “Brooklyn, Brooklyn. I’m from Brooklyn. I’m not doing nothing.” “What’s your name? What’s your name?” “He asked me for my ID.” “What is your name?” “Edwin — Edwin Jean.” “Edwin Jean.?” “Yes, J-E-A-N.” “You guys can record all you want. Just back up. Let us do our job, OK, back up.” “Why is this guy being arrested?” “Why is he being arrested.” “I didn’t do anything. He asked me for my ID.” I can’t go on this shit. Brooklyn what up. Yeah he asked me for my ID. I said, I’m not giving him no ID. That’s it. That’s it.
By Olivia Bensimon
October 21, 2025
A federal judge has ordered books about gender and race be returned to the shelves at school libraries on military bases in Kentucky, Virginia, Italy and Japan.
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A federal judge ordered the Department of Defense Monday to return books about gender and race back to five school libraries on military bases.
In April, 12 students at schools on military bases in Virginia, Kentucky, Italy and Japan claimed their First Amendment rights had been violated when nearly 600 books were removed from the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools they attend. The students are the children of active duty service members ranging from pre-K to 11th grade.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kentucky, and the ACLU of Virginia filed a motion on behalf of the families requesting the return of “all books and curriculum already quarantined or removed based on potential violation of the Executive Orders.”
Earlier this year, President Trump issued executive orders demanding federal agencies remove and prohibit any materials that promote “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
In January, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued the memoranda “Restoring America’s Fighting Force,” which prohibited “instruction on Critical Race Theory (CRT), DEI, or gender ideology,” and “Identity Months Dead at DoD,” which barred using official resources for celebrations such as Black History Month, Women’s History Month and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
According to the plaintiffs, DoDEA officials sent emails directing teachers to remove books and cancel lesson plans and events that would be in violation of Trump’s executive orders and Hegseth’s guidance.
Books removed from school libraries at military bases covered such topics as sexual identity, racism and LGBTQ pride. You can see a list of the books here.
Two elementary schools cancelled Black History Month events, teachers at a middle school were told to remove posters of education activist Malala Yousafzai and painter Frida Kahlo and another school cancelled Holocaust Remembrance Day.
According to the motion filed by the ACLU, the students claimed that when they protested the school’s actions, they were punished and became “increasingly afraid to discuss race and gender in their classrooms, because they fear being silenced by teachers fearful of violating the EOs and DoDEA guidance.”
In her decision, U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles sided with the students and their families, writing that “the removals were not rooted in pedagogical concerns” but rather there was “improper partisan motivation underlying [defendants’] actions.” Giles wrote that DOD officials must “immediately restore the books and curricular materials that have been removed.”
The Department of Defense and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) have not yet responded to NPR’s request for comment.
President Donald Trump claimed a key victory in a US appeals court Monday as a divided three-judge panel decided he is allowed to deploy federal troops to the city of Portland, Oregon.
Trump had claimed the right to send the national guard to the liberal stronghold for the purported purpose of protecting federal property and agents. The ruling marks an important legal victory for Trump as he continues to send military forces to Democratic-led cities.
Oregon attorney general Dan Rayfield spoke out against the ruling, saying that if it’s allowed to stand, Trump would have “unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification”.
“We are on a dangerous path in America,” he added.
Oregon governor Tina Kotek, has called on a federal appeals court to review and overturn a decision made by a three-judge panel on Monday that would permit Trump to deploy federalized national guard troops to the streets of Portland against the wishes of state and local officials. Kotek said she hoped the full ninth circuit court of appeals vacates the panel’s 2-1 decision, as the dissenting judge, Portland-based Susan Graber, urged her colleagues to do. “I’m very troubled by the decision of the court,” Kotek told reporters.
Read the full story
Former FBI director James Comey formally asked a federal judge to dismiss criminal charges against him, arguing he was the victim of a selective prosecution and that the US attorney who filed the charges was unlawfully appointed.
Read the full story
Construction of the president’s $250m White House ballroom appears to be underway. Photos obtained and published by media outlets show part of the East Wing being demolished. Read the full story
The US government shutdown extended into its 20th day on Monday with no resolution in sight, as a prominent Republican lawmaker publicly broke ranks with party leadership over the decision of Mike Johnson, the House speaker, to keep Congress shuttered for weeks.
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Donald Trump reposted an AI-generated video of him flying a fighter plane emblazoned with the words “King Trump” and dumping brown sludge onto protestors, in what appears to be a retort to the widespread No Kings protests that took place Saturday against his second presidency.
Read the full story Donald Trump welcomed PM Anthony Albanese to the White House, signing a rare earth minerals deal. It came amid rising trade tensions with China, which tightened its rare earth exports and is facing a 100% tariff threat from the US.
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Oregon governor urges appeal court review of national guard decision
Comey asks judge to dismiss criminal charges
The White House is a work zone now
Shutdown becomes one of the longest in US history
Trump reposts AI clip of plane dumping sludge on protesters
Trump meets with Australian prime minister
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