Education Secretary Linda McMahon questioned Harvard University President Alan Garber’s decision to take a 25% pay cut, saying she’s not sure how that shows the university is changing policies on antisemitism or racial discrimination.
A Harvard University spokesperson told Fox News Wednesday Garber agreed to take a 25% reduction in pay for the 2025-26 school year after the Trump administration cut $2.2 billion in funding to the university.
McMahon was a guest on FOX Business’ “The Evening Edit” Thursday, and she opened up about the situation at the elite Ivy League institution and Garber’s reduction in pay.
“I’m not quite sure today with the president of Harvard, President Garber, taking a salary decrease is somehow a statement that they’re changing their policies on antisemitism or racial discrimination. I don’t think that does a whole lot to solve the problem,” McMahon told host Elizabeth MacDonald.
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“And if you just look at some of the stats, I mean, the Harvard Crimson even reported that … in their own research over the last couple of years, 2% to 3% of the faculty are conservative. And you just can’t have that kind of discrepancy without having the theology or ideology be biased across campus.”
Harvard on Tuesday filed an update to its lawsuit against the Trump administration after another $450 million of research funding was cut.
The Massachusetts school amended the lawsuit hours after the federal government’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced that eight federal agencies were terminating approximately $450 million in grants over what is described as Harvard’s “radical” and “dark problem” on campus.
“Harvard University has repeatedly failed to confront the pervasive race discrimination and antisemitic harassment plaguing its campus,” the task force said in a statement.
The latest freeze comes in addition to $2.2 billion in funding already withheld and threats by the Trump administration to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT TAKES 25% PAY CUT AMID TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FUNDING FREEZE
Harvard filed its initial lawsuit in April to block $2.2 billion in funding from being denied.
In its amended lawsuit, Harvard said much of the funding that was initially frozen has now been terminated, apparently with no hope of restoring it.
McMahon told MacDonald she did not think Harvard has changed its practices, adding the Trump administration has gone to the university to investigate.
“We wanted to sit down with President Garber. I spoke with him,” McMahon said. “We were going to sit down and discuss things, and we had sent a letter … and asked him to come to the table. And his answer was a lawsuit that Harvard filed.”
Since then, she said, there has been other communication with Garber, noting the Trump administration was doing some of the things without taking away the lawsuit.
But she added she is willing to discuss with Harvard officials what the university is doing differently.
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McMahon acknowledged Harvard has tried to make changes, including asking the chair of the school’s Middle East Studies department to step down.
She made it clear, though, that the Trump administration is not taking anything off the table.
“It is clear antisemitism on campus is a civil rights violation, and Harvard has argued, as other elite universities have, that … maybe their First Amendment rights are being abridged,” McMahon said. “This is not about the First Amendment. This is civil rights.
“When you put other students at risk, their safety is of concern,” she added. “And their Jewish students will tell us that they’re even afraid to go to activities on campus. That’s clearly civil rights violations. Yes, that does bear investigation, and we’re not taking anything off the table.”
Harvard has become a target of Trump’s broader crackdown on universities, much of which is in response to last year’s anti-Israel unrest that erupted on campuses across the country.
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On April 11, the Trump administration sent a letter to Garber and Harvard Corporation Lead Member Penny Pritzker outlining the institution’s failures and a list of demands from the White House. In the letter, the administration accused Harvard of failing to uphold civil rights laws and to foster an “environment that produces intellectual creativity.”
The Trump administration threatened to pull federal funding if Harvard did not reform governance and leadership and its hiring and admissions practices by August 2025. The letter emphasized the need for Harvard to change its international admissions process to avoid admitting students who are “hostile” to American values or support terrorism or antisemitism.
Harvard refused to comply with the demands, and Garber said “no government … should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The Trump administration then froze $2.2 billion in funding to Harvard and is reportedly looking to slash another billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The university later filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its “unlawful” freezing of funds.
Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman, Andrea Margolis, Stephen Sorace and Bonny Chu contributed to this report.
