Universities quietly negotiating with White House aide to try to avoid Harvard’s fate

College and university leaders have been privately negotiating with a deputy to top Trump aide Stephen Miller in hopes of avoiding the same aggressive targeting of Harvard University, a person familiar with the matter said, as the administration looks to escalate its attacks on the Ivy League institution and other schools, Report informs via CNN.

The higher education leaders, who have had granular conversations with senior White House policy strategist May Mailman in recent weeks, are asking what signals they need to send to stay out of the administration’s crosshairs, the person said. Mailman works closely with Miller – an architect of the administration’s strategy to target colleges over concerns they are not sufficiently policing alleged antisemitism on their campuses.

In turn, a White House official said the administration is relaying to the leaders that “the money simply cannot and will not flow unabated as it has been – and that the universities are incubators of discrimination and the taxpayer cannot support that.”

These conversations come as the administration is investigating dozens of other schools, and as some school leadership comes to Washington.

The White House is looking to strike a deal with a high-profile school, said the first source, who is involved in the higher education response.

“They want a name-brand university to make a deal like the law firms made a deal that covers not just antisemitism and protests, but DEI and intellectual diversity,” this person said.

“They want Trump to be able to stand up and say he made a deal with so-and-so – an Ivy League school, some sort of name-brand school that gives them cover so they can say, ‘We don’t want to destroy higher education.’”

Asked if any of the schools are inclined to make such a deal, the source said, “Nobody wants to be the first, but the financial pressures are getting real.”

Many schools have already experienced significant federal funding cuts, and there is mounting uncertainty about the future of visas for international students, who are more likely to pay full tuition compared to their American counterparts.

The conversations, the source said, are continuing.

“The President is always willing to make a deal that benefits America, and this has been true for any higher education institution willing to embrace common sense, stop violating the law, and commit to restoring civil rights and order on their campuses,” the White House official said.

They added, “The administration is only willing to work with entities that operate in good faith and are not merely paying lip service without tangible actions. Many schools want to make a deal, and the President is willing to work with them.”

Officials at some other schools are waiting for the White House to turn its attention away from Harvard. A board member at a major university targeted by the task force, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, described communications as “irregular,” but said there have been repeated efforts by the task force to get the school’s leadership to come to Washington for a meeting.

“There is very little enthusiasm for that,” the board member said. “We do not have any interest in being their ‘model school’ or whatever.”

They added, “At this point, we feel very comfortable with the steps we’ve taken, and we don’t have any need to fight the administration, per se – unless they decide to mess with our core values. When it comes, we will be ready to fight them. But that doesn’t mean we need to provoke them.”

Some universities across the country have hired political consultants and experts to respond to some of the administration’s demands, while Harvard has launched an aggressive legal strategy and is organizing its alumni networks.