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.

Tensions are rising across American academia as the Trump administration froze over $2 billion in multi-year grants and contracts at Harvard University after its leaders refused to make key policy changes the White House also is demanding of other elite US colleges.