While the high-profile standoff between the Trump administration and Harvard University is certain to upend healthcare research, the Department of Education said it isn’t extending a sweeping funding freeze to the institution’s healthcare affiliates.
The administration announced its plans to freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants and $60 million in multiyear contracts to Harvard Monday evening, shortly after the school said it wouldn’t acquiesce to demands regarding its governance and policies.
Harvard had received a letter outlining those requirements (PDF) on April 11, which the administration said were mandatory to “justify federal investment.” The government had announced earlier in the month that it was reviewing $9 billion in funding to Harvard, and more than $110 million of grants to the school and its affiliated hospitals have reportedly been terminated since late February.
The demands are part of a pressure campaign on higher learning institutions the government describes as a crackdown on antisemitism demonstrations and programs, and efforts to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion policies the administration views as discriminatory. Princeton University, Columbia University, Brown University, Cornell University, Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania are among those also facing funding cuts.
Harvard President Alan Garber, in a statement, responded that “no government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” According to a Harvard web page, the government’s cuts risk halting research on cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and more.
After several hours of ambiguity, however, it now appears that federal funding to Harvard’s affiliate hospitals—separate organizations with which Harvard and its medical school have long had teaching arrangements—will not be affected by the funding freeze.
“The hospitals were not impacted in the freeze,” a representative of the Department of Education said in response to a Fierce Healthcare inquiry on the status of affiliates. Harvard Medical School’s website lists 15 affiliates, including clinical organizations and hospitals like Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Cambridge Health Alliance.
These organizations are independent from the university and receive their own grants and funds for healthcare delivery—though there were some concerns that the partners could be caught in the crossfire.
In a Monday evening letter to employees of Mass General Brigham (the parent system of Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital) obtained by The Boston Globe, President and CEO Anne Klibanski, M.D., said she had heard questions from “many” of the workers regarding the freeze.
She acknowledged that the impact was unclear at that time but said that MGB did not believe the administration’s stipulations were “applicable to our separately incorporated and independently operated medical and research hospitals.” She added that MGB sets its own nondiscriminatory policies for patients and employees and “always stand firmly behind our policies.”
That’s not to say that Harvard’s position lacks support from some of MGB’s team. Monday, more than 200 physicians and employees signed on to a letter urging the organization’s leadership to take a hard stance against the administration and its threats against Harvard.
Though they do not appear to be directly swept up in Harvard’s funding battle, many health systems are still operating under the specter of threatened federal funding.
The new administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, under the White House’s directive, hasn’t been shy about its intention to pull Medicare funds from provider organizations conducting gender-affirming care, though the order authorizing that policy has been preliminarily enjoined.
The department is also seeking to trim research grants disbursed through the National Institutes of Health, which could affect provider organizations with substantial research arms like MGB. That policy is also being fought in the courts and, as of now, has been blocked.