Harvard University is proposing a conservative scholarship center, but critics—including the Trump administration—dismiss it as mere window-dressing. The center, reportedly modeled after Stanford’s Hoover Institution, would cost between $500 million and $1 billion, according to people familiar with donor talks with Harvard.
The move comes amid federal pressure over DEI policies and campus anti-Semitism. The Trump administration has frozen nearly $3 billion in federal funding, threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and revoked its ability to enroll international students. Officials view the center as an attempt to defuse scrutiny rather than enact real change.
A Harvard spokesman defended the initiative: the center “will ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues, and will not be partisan, but rather will model the use of evidence-based, rigorous logic and a willingness to engage with opposing views.”
Yet statistics show the school remains ideologically homogenous. A Harvard Crimson survey in 2023 found that less than 3 percent of faculty identify as politically conservative. Another university survey revealed that only one-third of graduating seniors felt comfortable discussing controversial issues .
President Alan Garber admitted the imbalance: “We think it’s a real problem if—particularly a research university’s—students don’t feel free to speak their minds.” However, as the Trump administration noted, until Harvard truly diversifies its faculty and student discourse, this conservative scholarship initiative rings hollow.
