Outgoing Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana affirmed the importance of diversity at Harvard in a Friday interview amid President Donald Trump’s ongoing battle against universities’ diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
“Our diverse backgrounds and experiences and talents drive academic excellence,” Khurana said Friday.
But Khurana — though he did not say Trump’s name once in the hour-long interview — positioned the president’s attacks on research funding and DEI as antithetical to Harvard’s values.
“We have, for 400 years, recognized the power of a variety of different backgrounds and experiences,” Khurana said. “Diverse thinking actually creates fertile ground for new ideas.”
During Trump’s first two days in office, he directed federal agencies to terminate equity-related grants and crack down on DEI initiatives at federally funded institutions — efforts that were temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Friday.
The orders are part of a systematic effort to gut DEI programs. Trump appointed outspoken DEI critics to key positions in the Department of Education. The department circulated a letter earlier this month arguing that the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against Harvard — which banned race-conscious college admissions — prohibits universities from considering race in any academic decisions, including prizes, scholarships, and housing.
The administration has also moved to restrict financial support for university research, describing large chunks of federal research spending as wasteful. Defending the National Institutes of Health’s bid to limit funding for overhead costs in a Feb. 9 press conference aboard Air Force One, Trump asked, “Why are we giving money to Harvard when it’s got a $50 billion endowment?”
But Khurana mounted a forceful defense of federal research spending, saying the support Harvard receives from the federal government — including Harvard’s nonprofit status and federal funding for research — enables the University to “create value that is meaningful to society.”
“When we want to do something, or we want to do it in a sustainable way, we need to allocate material resources to it,” Khurana said.
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 has suggested the University needs to reorient its communications strategy around proving Harvard’s value to the world. And disclosure forms show that Harvard’s lobbying expenses — which spiked in 2024 — have focused on research funding and policy. On Friday, Khurana said he thought it was easy for the public to undervalue Harvard’s contributions.
“I do worry, because I do think that institutions like ours produce a lot of good for the world. Research is complex. It’s multi-year. The benefits of it are not immediate,” Khurana said. “We need to make sure that people understand how important this investment is.”
“It pays off in global competitiveness, and it pays off in the beneficiaries of having a healthy citizenry for our democracy,” he added.
During the interview, Khurana also addressed the Trump administration’s aggressive stances on immigration. Last month, Trump signed an order which told federal agencies to assist in revoking the visas of students who broke the law while participating in pro-Palestine encampments.
Khurana said international students are navigating a “fluid” environment and advised those affected to visit the Harvard International Office.
“It’s really important at a time when rules are changing — or how they’re being interpreted is changing — to have the most recent information and understanding,” Khurana said.
Apparently in anticipation of new restrictions under Trump, the HIO advised international students to return before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday — the day of Trump’s inauguration.
But Khurana did not describe general guidance for international students, saying Harvard would handle advice at an individual level because “different countries and different communities face different rules.”
In the face of political uncertainty, Khurana — who during Trump’s first term advocated for undocumented undergraduates at Harvard — said the University should stay true to its values.
“We should not be an institution that operates out of fear, but operates out of a sense of conviction that the truth is important,” he said.
“One of the things I feel so lucky about being at Harvard — and especially at the College — is that it’s always served as a candle in the darkness,” he added.
—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.
—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.