Here is more from the Wall Street Journal:
Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal.
The idea has circulated at the university for several years but gained steam after pro-Palestinian protests began disrupting campus in late 2023. Harvard has discussed the effort with potential donors, people familiar with the matter said. The cost of creating such a center could run somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, a person familiar with Harvard’s thinking estimated.
The Hoover Institution, which resides on Stanford’s campus and champions free markets and small government, dates back decades. Academic institutes elsewhere devoted to civics, American history and Western civilization began popping up, mostly at public universities in red states, about a decade ago.
Arizona State University launched its School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership in 2016. Founding director Paul Carrese said there are now more than a dozen centers on public university campuses and several more at private schools.
At the University of Florida’s Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education, University of North Carolina’s School of Civic Life and Leadership and Yale University’s Center for Civic Thought, students read classic texts, apply lessons to current problems and hash out differences in small group discussions.
The Hoover Institution was founded in 1919 and has annual revenues of around $100 million.