Harvard is temporarily freezing all hiring, the university announced Monday. The freeze will apply to staff and faculty within all schools and divisions of Harvard.
Harvard President Alan Garber said the university needs to respond to “changes in federal policy” and prepare for the financial impact of such actions. Last week, the Trump administration announced it was canceling more than $400 million in grants and contracts with Columbia University.
In a message to staff , Garber stressed that the hiring freeze comes in conjunction with broader cost-saving efforts. He also said while the school plans to keep the hiring pause in effect through this semester, it will reassess that decision “as circumstances warrant.”
In recent weeks, schools including the University of Vermont, Notre Dame, University of Nebraska and Emory University have all announced hiring freezes.
Harvard history professor Alison Frank Johnson is worried about what these freezes means for early career educators.
“There are people who are actually applying for jobs that are disappearing under their feet,” she said.
Johnson said while the sciences face acute threats given the Trump administration’s actions so far, she wants Harvard to maintain a holistic view of its campus as it considers how to respond to financial uncertainty.
“My concern for the institution is that we need to remember that all parts of the institution are valuable — every department contributes to our research and teaching mission — that the arts and humanities are critical for the life of the mind,” Johnson said.
Ryan Enos, who teaches government at Harvard, described the hiring freeze as “sad” and said higher education leaders need to stand up and fight back.
“Authoritarians all over the world — in Hungary and Venezuela, in Russia and Turkey — they attack higher education,” Enos said. “And it was predictable that when Trump took office promising to govern as an authoritarian, he was going to do that. And he’s following up on that promise.”
