On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon responded to a question on free speech concerns with the administration’s push for viewpoint diversity at Harvard by saying that their letter “was a negotiation letter. It was really not a final offer of anything.”
Co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin said, “Secretary, let me read a portion of the letter written by the government to Harvard, because this portion, I think, has a lot more to do with free speech than civil rights.” After reading from the portion of the letter on viewpoint diversity, Ross Sorkin said, “I ask about this, not because it’s not a good goal. And by the way, it would be great if Harvard and every private university in the country had viewpoint diversity. The question is whether viewpoint diversity is really about free speech.”
McMahon responded, “Well, let me just say that, when we began our negotiations with Harvard, and this letter that was sent to Harvard was a point of negotiation. We were talking about several different points with them. Harvard released this letter to the media. This was a negotiation letter. It was really not a final offer of anything. We had hoped Harvard would come back to the table to discuss these. We would like to have viewpoint diversity. We would like to have all of the things that students that are going to universities have a right to expect. So, this is a negotiation tool. We hope Harvard will come back to the table. We’d like to be able to move forward with them and with other universities.”
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