Saturday, October 18, 2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.
Today is No Kings Day.
More than 2,500 demonstrations – about 450 more than were planned in June – across all 50 states are slated for Saturday in the second round of “No Kings” protests, which aim to broadly reject what organizers describe as Trump’s “authoritarian” agenda.(CNN)
Hope you are joining the protests.
Democracy depends on us.
‘No Kings' protest organizers project a large turnout Saturday
Organizers of the "No Kings" protests are projecting that millions of Americans will demonstrate against the policies of the Trump administration on Saturday, amid ongoing ICE arrests and the deployment of National Guard troops to several Democratic-run cities around the country.
"The purpose here is to stand in solidarity, to organize, to defend our democracy and protect each other and our communities, and just say enough is enough," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group that is one of the protest organizers.
"We've been watching the Trump administration's abuses of power, and millions took to the streets in June," she said.
Some Republicans have decried the protests as anti-American. House Speaker Mike Johnson called it a "hate America rally."
This summer, droves of demonstrators protested on the Army's 250th anniversary, which coincided with President Trump's birthday. In celebration of the date, Trump insisted on a massive military parade that critics said was meant to honor Trump as much as the armed service.
Now, protesters say they are speaking out on what they say are injustices perpetrated against suspected undocumented immigrants, as well as a failing health care system, efforts to tilt elections, and other grievances.
The organizers said on the No Kings website: "The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don't have kings and we won't back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty."
Houston: People gather in Houston for the No Kings nationwide demonstration.
Photos: See No Kings protests around the country
White House responds: "Who cares?"
When asked about the planned protests and accusations that Trump was behaving like a monarch, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson replied, "Who cares?" She had no further comment.
In June, organizers estimated that 5 million people participated in a day of No Kings protests around the country in more than 2,000 events.
They are projecting an even bigger turnout this weekend.
Harvard sociologist and Assistant Professor of Public Policy Liz McKenna said that in the past, movements of this scale have succeeded in influencing social change, but that their efficacy has dropped significantly since the turn of the century.
We are not even a year into the Trump administration, and so I think the strategy on the part of the organizers is to show that 'we're not backing down,'" McKenna said.
Protesters attend a "Hands Off" rally Saturday to demonstrate against President Trump on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
NATIONAL
Nationwide 'Hands Off!' protests erupt against Trump and Musk
But, she added: "We've seen more people take to the streets, not just in the United States but around the world, by the millions, and in many, if not most of those cases, the protests have not achieved their stated aims."
McKenna cited recent large-scale protests like Black Lives Matter and the Women's March of Trump's first term, which were highly visible but did not necessarily result in lasting change. (NPR)
What anti-Democracy Trumpers are saying and doing.
Remember their names.
Mike Johnson (who called the protests) a "hate America rally." Greg Abbott. Glenn Youngkin. Others.
We will defeat them.
Aaron Parnas, Substack - Republican Governors across the country are calling up and mobilizing the National Guard in their states ahead of tomorrow’s No Kings Day protests, which are now set to be the largest protests in American history.
Governor Glenn Youngkin has mobilized the Virginia National Guard ahead of the nationwide No Kings protests against President Trump’s policies, coordinating with organizers and law enforcement to maintain safety amid over 60 planned demonstrations across Virginia. The first No Kings Day Protest was completely peaceful in Virginia.
Governor Greg Abbott ordered the deployment of Texas National Guard troops and state troopers to Austin ahead the No Kings Day protest, falsely claiming that they were “antifa linked”, drawing criticism from Democrats who accused him of using militarized tactics to intimidate peaceful demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights.
From Jay Kua, Substack-
In Illinois, the Trump regime got handed an opinion yesterday [Thursday] that it really didn’t want to see come down. A Seventh Circuit panel kept in place Federal District Court Judge April Perry’s order barring National Guard deployments to Illinois.
Judges Ilana Rovner, a George H.W. Bush appointee; David Hamilton, an Obama appointee; and Amy St. Eve, a Trump appointee issued the unanimous order holding, addressing the facts, as set forth at the district court; the TRO [Temporary Restraining Order] from Perry; the appeal of that TRO; the law — 10 U.S.C. 12406 — that has been relied upon by the Trump administration in its efforts to federalize the National Guard in California, Oregon, and Illinois; and the application of the law to those facts, as known at this time.
This passage from the ruling should be required reading for civil rights lawyers, officers of the court, politicians, activists, and any ICE agents able to read above an eighth grade level:
A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows. Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest. Such conduct exceeds the scope of the First Amendment, of course, and law enforcement has apprehended the perpetrators accordingly. But because rebellions at least use deliberate, organized violence to resist governmental authority, the problematic incidents in this record clearly fall within the considerable daylight between protected speech and rebellion.
Bottom line: If every protest could be called a “rebellion” simply because the government says so, there would be no First Amendment right to protest. Federal troops could come put it down, even in the absence of any “organized violence to resist government authority.”
This article 👇 comes from Arizona but it cites pushback every where else too.
No Kings isn't the only resistance to Trump administration. Thankfully
No Kings to Pentagon walk outs, Trump pushback grow.
You take your good news where you can find it.
Donald Trump is obsessed with controlling the message. He is no different than literally any other president who came before him in that regard. He just takes it to extremes. He’ll do anything he can to try to shape the flow and content of information to keep his base happy (and his opponents angry): lie, attack, make stuff up, intimidate media companies.
Is Portland, Oregon, really “war-ravaged,” “on fire” or “bombed out?” Is the situation so dire that shop owners can’t put glass in their windows?
Of course not. But saying so makes it easier to justify sending U.S. troops into the city, especially for a base that is eager to believe anything Trump tells it.
Lately, however, there have been pockets of resistance to media control, to propaganda, to trying to discourage free expression. I don’t know if you’d call it heartening, but it is, at least, encouraging — and healthy. It's not about MAGA vs. everyone else. It's about free speech.
Reporters refuse Pentagon power play
From a purely media standpoint, the biggest story occurred when reporters covering the Pentagon turned in their credentials and left the building, rather than go along with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s new access policy that restricts their work.
Good for them.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the rules require that "military personnel need approval before sharing information with the media, even if it isn’t classified. It says members of the media should be aware that agency 'personnel may face adverse consequences for unauthorized disclosures.'”
Jonathan Turley — Jonathan Turley! — said on Fox News, “What they’re basically saying is if you publish anything that’s not in the press release, is not the official statement of the Pentagon, you could be held responsible under this policy. That is going to create a stranglehold on the free press, and the cost is too great.”
When Turley is attacking a Trump administration action, you know you've gone too far.
In case it’s not clear, this is not how journalism works: You don’t need authorization from anyone to write a story. Stories would never be written if you did. But this is how solidarity works.
Even outlets like Fox News, which never misses a chance to put Trump in a good light, and Newsmax, which is even more blatant in that regard, refused to sign the new policy. One America News, which is basically state media for Trump, did sign on to the policy. Whatever the boss wants for that bunch.
There’s some irony here. Hegseth has been obsessed with media leaks at the Pentagon — even though he used to be a Fox News host. After some early trouble with his Signal group chat, he’s especially wary, no doubt.
To be clear, access is nice for journalists, but hardly essential. If Hegseth thinks this will somehow stymie the flow of stories about the Pentagon, he’s wrong. Although he later praised the move, Trump himself said, “Nothing stops reporters. You know that.”
Credit where it's due. He’s right about that.
Kudos to Sky Harbor Airport for standing up to Kristi Noem
Another bright spot is that more than a dozen airports around the nation, including Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, are refusing to show a propaganda video that blames Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown.
“Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says in the video. “And because of this, many of our operations are impacted and most of our TSA employees are working without pay. We will continue to do all that we can to avoid delays that will impact your travel. And our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government.”
That’s just the message weary and nervous travelers want to hear when they’re scrambling to make their flights. It’s just relentless with this bunch — take credit for everything you want, blame Democrats for everything else. The only mystery here is why other airports are running the video, which many legal experts believe is illegal.
No, the No Kings rallies aren't 'hate-America' rallies
Finally, massive No Kings rallies to protest the Trump administration are planned for Saturday, Oct. 18, including in Arizona. It’s not the first. There were also No Kings rallies in June. But this time around, Republicans have latched onto the planned protests with what certainly seems like a coordinated campaign to attack them preemptively.
“They have a ‘hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for Oct. 18 on the National Mall,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said. “It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the Antifa people, they’re all coming out.”
On Friday, he offered this update: "They're going to descend on our capital for their much-anticipated so-called ‘No Kings’ rally. We refer to it by its more accurate description: 'The Hate America' rally. I'm not sure how anybody can refute that."
I'm not sure how anyone can't.
House GOP Whip Tom Emmer said, “You’ll see the hate for America all over this thing when they show up” to rallies, saying that protesters “just do not love this country.”
Or maybe they love it so much they’re willing to fight for it, even in the face of unwarranted criticism? Just a thought. You might think Republicans and Democrats would be against America having kings. I’m starting to wonder.
Whatever the case, everyone has the right, protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, to protest. Republicans are clearly trying to talk people out of it. But there’s more. Trump has signed an executive order designating Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization,” even though it’s not an organization at all. (Antifa is short for "anti-fascist," and is a label adopted by some, mainly on the far left, to mount sometimes violent protests. The term has become a lazy catchall phrase for Republicans to try to discredit any liberal group or movement they dislike.)
But to MAGA followers, it is if he says it is. What if Trump declares anyone who protests on Saturday is an Antifa member and, by extension, a terrorist? He’s already sent troops into U.S. cities. What’s next?
It’s scary. But it’s also encouraging that millions are expected to protest anyway. Even if you support Trump, that should be good news. Trump and his followers talk a lot about supporting free speech. Now let’s see if they put their money where their mouth is and leave the protests — and protesters — alone.(AZCentral)
One more thing. Or two.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has issued an ultimatum to U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson: either swear in Adelita Grijalva—or face litigation—arguing that the 813,000 residents of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District are being taxed without representation. She has said time is up: “Time is up. I gave him two days, and he continues to refuse to swear her in. And Arizona’s seventh congressional district 813,000 Arizonans are now being taxed without representation. I have lawyers downstairs right now drafting the litigation.” (Aaron Parnes, Substack)
Where the No Kings protests are happening in New York area.
New York City.
Westchester
Long Island
New Jersey
The Colleges fight back.
Sourced From New York Times from multiple articles starting on October 1st, when Trump began his “compact” demand of specific American colleges.
The Trump administration offered nine universities benefits in exchange for signing an agreement to protect conservative voices, among other things.
As By Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. wrote, “this is extortion, plain and simple.”
The White House has said it wants responses from the universities by Oct. 20.
M.I.T. was the first to refuse.
The other eight colleges are the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.
Brown was the second university to turn down the deal.
Here is where we are now,👇
Universities Are Standing Up to Trump.
A White House proposal for special funding treatment crossed a line for several schools. Some say it feels like a turning point in the federal government’s battle with higher education.
But in higher education, there is talk — and some hope — that perhaps school presidents will err on the side of academic alliances rather than political ones.
“At some point it becomes embarrassing, in a craven way, to make a deal for yourself and abandon those institutions that are standing up for academic freedom,” said Corey Brettschneider, a political science professor at Brown and the author of “The Presidents and the People,” which is about citizens who fought to defend democracy from American presidents who sought to abuse their powers.
Either way, people like Ms. Shultz are bracing for Mr. Trump to keep his attention on places like Brown until he leaves office.
“This is an administration we’re going to interact with, in some capacity, for the rest of his term,” Ms. Shultz said.
That, she argued, was why Brown needed to say no.
But in higher education, there is talk — and some hope — that perhaps school presidents will err on the side of academic alliances rather than political ones.
“At some point it becomes embarrassing, in a craven way, to make a deal for yourself and abandon those institutions that are standing up for academic freedom,” said Corey Brettschneider, a political science professor at Brown and the author of “The Presidents and the People,” which is about citizens who fought to defend democracy from American presidents who sought to abuse their powers.
Either way, people like Ms. Shultz are bracing for Mr. Trump to keep his attention on places like Brown until he leaves office.
“This is an administration we’re going to interact with, in some capacity, for the rest of his term,” Ms. Shultz said.
That, she argued, was why Brown needed to say no.
The White House is confronting academia’s most forceful pushback to its quest to remake American higher education, as top universities reject its proposal to reward schools that embrace President Trump’s priorities.
On campuses and in Washington, professors and policymakers alike are weighing whether Mr. Trump, who has reveled in his campaign to upend higher education, has overreached.
For months, his campaign faced only sporadic resistance. But over the last week, Brown University, M.I.T., the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California have all rebuffed the White House’s push to give preferential funding treatment to schools that show fealty to Mr. Trump’s agenda.
Brown’s decision, in particular, is a case study of how the White House may have misjudged its own strength and academia’s nerve, especially once one of Mr. Trump’s top aides said that the nine schools initially chosen to consider the proposal were “good actors,” or could be.
The demands also reach farther, with conditions that include accepting “that academic freedom is not absolute” and pledging to potentially shut down “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”
The document also envisions limits on international students, tuition freezes, an embrace of standardized testing and definitions of genders “according to reproductive function and biological processes.”
The administration dangled the possibility of more federal money for schools that signed the deal while warning that they were “free to develop models and values” that diverged from the Trump vision if they chose to “forego federal benefits.”
The administration depicted the proposal’s text as mostly final, but it asked for feedback by next Monday from Brown, Dartmouth College, M.I.T., the University of Arizona, Penn, Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University.
While the University of Texas system has expressed support for the compact, others have rejected it or said little in response.
But when the leaders of 10 schools not included in the White House’s solicitation — including Arizona State, Baruch, Cornell, Virginia Tech and William & Mary — were asked, at a gathering in New York this week, who among them would sign the compact if asked, no one lifted a hand.
“There are many colleagues who just think there is no way any president, with the possible exception of red state, public universities, could sign this,” said Michael P. Steinberg, the president of Brown’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
Indeed, the compact invited questions about whether universities would muster a response besides the caution and conciliation they have often favored during Mr. Trump’s presidency. That worry was especially acute at Brown, just months after the university struck a deal with the government in which the school promised policy changes and committed $50 million to work force programs. In return, Brown saw its research funding restored and the government closed a series of investigations.
Many on campus had begrudgingly accepted the settlement, but the compact sparked swift alarm.
Dr. Francois I. Luks, a surgeon who is a professor in Brown’s medical school, said he had viewed the July settlement not as “a perfect solution, but it was a reasonable one.” The new proposal, however, was bullying in its approach and “an insidious way of going inch by inch,” he said.
The editorial page board of the campus newspaper, The Brown Daily Herald, also saw the July agreement as “a fair deal” that preserved the university’s essential values and revived millions of dollars in research funding.
But it condemned the new proposal as “akin to a protection racket” that was “an extraordinary attempt at a power grab.”
Paul Hudes, a junior who writes for the paper and who dissented from the board’s original stand, said he saw some merit in some of the compact’s provisions, such as a sweeping embrace of standardized testing. He was bothered, though, by the government looking to condition funding on such policies. And he was bothered that months after he finished a course on communist Europe, his own campus was facing state pressure.
“How am I supposed to go learn from this genius professor for a full semester last spring and then come and hear about this deal, which, to me, sounds like exactly the type of stuff that he talked about that was happening in Europe in the early 20th century?” Mr. Hudes, the head of the editorial page board, asked incredulously before Brown announced its decision to reject the proposal.
Rosie Shultz, a junior, also worried this week that the government had gone too far.
“They’re trying to harness this moment and say, ‘Look, there’s a problem happening in the higher education sphere. We will work with them to fix it,’” she said outside a residence hall. “And they are trying to add a whole bunch of things on top of that are, frankly, not the same issue.”
The compact did not attract especially vocal defenders on campus. Brown’s Republican Club did not respond to interview requests.
Five days after M.I.T. became the first school to reject the proposal, and as angst mounted on the Brown campus, Christina H. Paxson, Brown’s president, said that her school would not support the compact either. Penn and U.S.C. refused the next day.
Dr. Paxson wrote that she was “concerned that the compact by its nature and by various provisions would restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy of Brown’s governance, critically compromising our ability to fulfill our mission.”
She added that the university had already embraced some ideas similar to ones in the compact in its July agreement, which explicitly prohibited the government from using the settlement “to dictate Brown’s curriculum or the content of academic speech,” something she said the compact did not seem to recognize.
It is not clear how the Trump administration will proceed if universities continue to reject the proposal. The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this article, though a spokeswoman, Liz Huston, warned after Penn’s announcement on Thursday that “any higher education institution unwilling to assume accountability and confront these overdue and necessary reforms will find itself without future government and taxpayers support.”
But in higher education, there is talk — and some hope — that perhaps school presidents will err on the side of academic alliances rather than political ones.
“At some point it becomes embarrassing, in a craven way, to make a deal for yourself and abandon those institutions that are standing up for academic freedom,” said Corey Brettschneider, a political science professor at Brown and the author of “The Presidents and the People,” which is about citizens who fought to defend democracy from American presidents who sought to abuse their powers.
Either way, people like Ms. Shultz are bracing for Mr. Trump to keep his attention on places like Brown until he leaves office.
“This is an administration we’re going to interact with, in some capacity, for the rest of his term,” Ms. Shultz said.
That, she argued, was why Brown needed to say no. (New York Times))
One more thing. Or two.
Trump is not giving up.
On Friday, he started all over again.
The Trump administration is reaching out to more universities about its funding-advantage proposal after several early invitees rejected it.
White House officials invited Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Kansas and Arizona State University to a Friday meeting to discuss the proposal along with prior invitees the University of Texas, University of Arizona, Dartmouth College, Vanderbilt University and University of Virginia, according to people familiar with the matter.
A White House official said the meeting was to gather input and feedback from the schools about the proposal, dubbed the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” The meeting was pitched as an opportunity to ask questions about the compact and refine some of the language in it, said one person familiar with the matter.
One goal is to find common ground with the schools, some of whom support the values the proposal lays out but are worried about sacrificing independence.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was expected to attend, along with other administration officials, according to people familiar with the matter.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California and Brown University have rejected the proposal, citing concern about maintaining their independence.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration invited an initial round of nine universities to sign onto a set of operating principles in exchange for preferential access to federal funds.
The memo put forth a wide-ranging set of terms the administration says are intended to elevate university standards and performance. Universities that sign on are promised “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants,” according to a letter addressed to university leaders.
The proposal requires that schools ban the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions; freeze tuition for five years; and cap international undergrad enrollment at 15%. It also makes demands about campus political climate, asking universities to ensure a “vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus” and to create a more welcoming environment for conservatives.
Arizona State, one of the new colleges invited to weigh in on the proposal, is interested in an agreement with the administration on a set of shared principles, a person familiar with the matter said, but has concerns about the legal nature of the compact.
ASU officials have met with Trump officials in recent weeks to relay those concerns and others, including a commitment to freezing tuition for all American students, people familiar with the matter said. ASU receives a small portion of funding from the state of Arizona and relies heavily on tuition dollars to fund its operations.
Another concern would be the cap of international students. ASU is one of the top schools for international students and prides itself on its commitment to accessibility for any student who wants to attend college.
On Sunday, President Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that the compact was necessary because “much of Higher Education has lost its way, and is now corrupting our Youth and Society with WOKE, SOCIALIST, and ANTI-AMERICAN Ideology.”
Trump extended an invitation to all schools to sign the compact as a way to fix these problems. (MSN)
Harvard seems to be okay.
Harvard Reports First Deficit Since Pandemic in Fiscal Year 2025, Sees 12% Endowment Growth -The Harvard Crimson
Harvard Management Company, located in the Federal Reserve building in Boston, manages Harvard's $56.9 billion endowment.
Harvard reported an operating loss of $113 million — its first budget deficit since 2020 — as its financial footing shakes from disruptions to federal funding, even as the total value of its endowment grew by 11.9 percent to $56.9 billion, according to its fiscal year 2025 financial report.
Harvard reported an operating loss of $113 million — its first budget deficit since 2020 — as its financial footing shakes from disruptions to federal funding, even as the total value of its endowment grew by 11.9 percent to $56.9 billion, according to its fiscal year 2025 financial report.
The deficit, a 1.7 percent operating shortfall on $6.7 billion in total revenue, marks a reversal from last year’s $45 million surplus and reflects the steep financial impact of the Trump administration’s spring termination of nearly all federal research grants.
Most of Harvard’s funding was recently restored after a federal judge ruled the White House’s funding freeze unconstitutional — though the reinstatement is not reflected in the 2025 report, which reflects the fiscal year through June. The realized gains on the University’s endowment in fiscal year 2026 will also be taxed at more than 400 percent of the current rate.
Harvard last reported a deficit in fiscal year 2020, a $10 million shortfall driven by Covid-19 pandemic-related declines. This year, Harvard’s rhetoric pointed to a dire situation — driven by deliberate federal policy rather than a public health crisis.
Harvard Treasurer Timothy R. Barakett ’87 and Chief Financial Officer Ritu Kalra wrote that the financial consequences of the White House’s attacks on Harvard “are only beginning to be felt.”
“This result could have been worse. It reflects not only the magnitude of the disruption, but also the discipline of a university community that acted quickly and with resolve,” they wrote, citing cost-cutting measures across the University including pauses on wage increases, layoffs, and the University-wide hiring freeze.
At least four faculties have laid off staff since April. Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences announced last week that it would lay off 25 percent of unionized clerical and technical staff, in addition to other non-union workers, even after the majority of the University’s funds were reinstated last month.
Despite the austerity measures, the University’s operating expenses still rose by $367 million in fiscal year 2025. The rise was driven by salary and employee benefit hikes prior to the March hiring freeze, legal fees, and investments in technology infrastructure, according to the report.
Barakett and Kalra credited the endowment’s strong investment return — the highest since the economy’s post-pandemic recovery — as “central to navigating the uncertainty” caused by the White House’s actions.
University President Alan M. Garber ’76 thanked donors and Harvard affiliates for adapting to “uncertainty and threats to sources of revenue” the University has long-relied on for support.
“Even by the standards of our centuries-long history, fiscal year 2025 was extraordinarily challenging, with political and economic disruption affecting many sectors, including higher education,” Garber wrote.
The endowment accounts for 37 percent of the University’s operational revenue, resulting in a $2.5 billion spend in the past fiscal year. The University also tapped $250 million in contingency reserves to support researchers while awaiting reinstatement of federal payments.
Still, Barakett and Kalra wrote that the endowment cannot be used indefinitely as a stopgap measure because 80 percent of its funds are restricted and cannot be reallocated at will.
Harvard’s federal sponsored revenue fell by 8 percent to $629 million in fiscal year 2025, after the suspension of nearly all federal research grants earlier this year. Without grant freezes and cuts, federal sponsored revenue would have been on track for a 9 percent increase over the previous year. Non-federal sponsored revenue rose by 6 percent to $345 million, driven by new multi-year awards.
But the endowment’s strong returns, which increased the fund’s value for the second year in a row, still serve as a rebuke to criticism of HMC’s historical underperformance.
Under the helm of HMC CEO N.P. “Narv” Narvekar, the fund management team was dramatically restructured, with a shift to external managers and private equity holdings. The fund had previously struggled in comparison to the investment returns of Ivy-Plus peers.
HMC furthered that shift in 2025 — allocating 41 percent of the endowment to private equity compared to last year’s 39 percent — even as it sold off $1 billion of private equity stakes in the spring. The financial report also disclosed the distribution of its private equity investments for the first time.
Aside from the unprecedented boom in returns in 2021, this year HMC saw the highest return rate since Narvekar began his term in 2016. But the endowment tax hike, which will apply to the following fiscal year, presents a major challenge for Narvekar.
Signed into law in July, the Republicans’ mega tax and spending bill raises the highest tax rate on endowment returns from 1.4 percent to 8 percent. Harvard estimates that the tax will cost the school around $300 million each year. (Harvard Crimson)
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