Harvard President Alan Garber takes 25% pay cut amid Trump funding row

By Janet Lorin and Greg Ryan

 

Harvard University President Alan Garber will take a voluntary 25 per cent pay cut for the academic year that starts July 1, a school spokesman said. 

The reduction in compensation comes as the oldest and richest US university grapples with the fallout from its standoff over federal funding with the Trump administration, which has faulted Harvard’s handling of antisemitism and alleged discrimination on campus.

 

The US terminated $450 million in grants to Harvard this week, after earlier freezing more than $2.2 billion in funding. Republican lawmakers have also unveiled legislation that would significantly increase taxes on endowments for the nation’s wealthiest universities, including Harvard. 

 

 

Harvard, which earlier this year announced a freeze in hiring, didn’t specify Garber’s salary. In his former role as Harvard’s provost, he earned total compensation of $1.1 million, according to the most recent publicly available tax form for the 2022-2023 academic year. As provost in 2020, Garber was among leaders who took a voluntary 25 per cent pay cut during the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

The Trump administration has assailed Harvard since taking office, blasting the school for failing to protect Jewish students on campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel. Harvard this week expanded its lawsuit against the Trump administration over the halt in federal funds and what it deems “unconstitutional demands” that threaten the school’s independence.  

 

The funding cuts at Harvard are “stopping lifesaving research and, in some cases, losing years of important work,” Garber and provost John Manning wrote in a letter Wednesday.

 

Harvard said it will provide an extra $250 million of university money to help pay for research during the coming year, on top of the approximately $500 million it spends on research annually. 

 

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school also receives about $300 million in sponsored research funding from non-federal sources. In the last academic year, Harvard received around $700 million in research funding from various federal agencies, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense and Energy.

 

Separately, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey on Wednesday announced a hiring freeze across the executive branch to help protect the state’s budget priorities in the face of federal economic uncertainty.

 

In addition to the Harvard funding battle and separate curbs on National Institutes of Health grants, the Trump administration has cut $350 million in direct aid to Massachusetts that supported initiatives including disaster prevention, student mental health services, school security and building upgrades and increased broadband access, according to the governor’s office.