Is there an elite university administator who understands how a shakedown works?

We’ll see, but in this case at least it remains an open question:

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 has told faculty that a deal with the Trump administration is not imminent and denied that the University is considering a $500 million settlement, according to three faculty members familiar with the matter.

The University is seriously considering resolving its dispute with the White House through the courts rather than a negotiated settlement, Garber said, according to the three faculty members.

Harvard and the Trump administration restarted negotiations in June to restore billions of dollars in frozen federal research funding. In recent weeks, the government has reached settlements with several of Harvard’s peers — including Columbia University, which paid more than $200 million in exchange for access to federal funding.

The Trump administration has pushed Harvard to cut an even costlier deal, and the New York Times reported last Monday that the University is considering a settlement with a price tag of half a billion dollars.

But Garber, in a conversation with one faculty member, said that the suggestion that Harvard was open to paying $500 million is “false” and claimed that the figure was apparently leaked to the press by White House officials, according to the three faculty familiar with the conversation.

If a school with the resources of the one just outside Boston can’t stand up to Trump it’s going to be even harder for anyone else. We’ll see if he can stick to it.