An official on the administration’s antisemitism task force told the university that a letter of demands had been sent without authorization.

On Monday, after Harvard University publicly rejected a series of authoritarian demands Trump administration officials sent to Harvard the previous Friday, one of those officials tried out a novel de-escalation technique: He frantically called the university up and insisted the letter had been sent by mistake.

Harvard professor Steven Pinker reacts to new reporting about the Trump administration mistakenly sending a list of demands to Harvard University. Professor Pinker also welcomes greater viewpoint diversity at Harvard but rejects the idea that the federal government should micromanage a private university.