Donald Trump suffered another setback in his war with Harvard when a federal judge ruled his attempt to freeze $2.2 billion in research funding to the university violated the Constitution.
Boston U.S. District Judge Allison D Burroughs ruled that the move to block the money from reaching the elite Ivy League, the oldest in the United States, amounted to “retaliation, unconstitutional conditions, and unconstitutional coercion.”
The Trump administration insisted its April decision to stop thousands of federal grants reaching Harvard, including those destined for cancer research projects, was necessary to compel the institution to do more to tackle antisemitism and “radical left” ideologies on campus, a reference to pro-Palestinian demonstrations staged by students to oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 2023 terror attack.
Harvard responded by suing the government, arguing the administration was violating its free speech rights because it refused to meet officials demands that it overhaul its governance, hiring and academic programs to align with their own ideological priorities.
Burroughs, who was appointed to the bench by Barack Obama, agreed with the university’s arguments, saying that while Harvard had tolerated hateful behavior for too long, the Trump administration had “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.”
She said the pressure campaign that resulted in it terminating Harvard’s funding did not honor its free speeches as granted by the First Amendment.
“Further, their actions have jeopardized decades of research and the welfare of all those who could stand to benefit from that research, as well as reflect a disregard for the rights protected by the Constitution and federal statutes,” Burroughs added.
The judge said it was the job of the courts to safeguard academic freedom and “ensure that important research is not improperly subjected to arbitrary and procedurally infirm grant terminations, even if doing so risks the wrath of a government committed to its agenda no matter the cost.”
The judge barred the administration from terminating or freezing any additional federal funding to Harvard and blocked it from continuing to withhold payment on existing grants or refusing to award new funding in future.
White House spokesperson Liz Huston vowed to appeal the ruling and labelled Burroughs an “activist Obama-appointed judge,” saying Harvard “does not have a constitutional right to taxpayer dollars and remains ineligible for grants in the future.”
Harvard President Alan Garber said in a message to the campus community that the ruling “validates our arguments in defense of the University’s academic freedom, critical scientific research, and the core principles of American higher education.”
Garber made no mention of the status of settlement talks with the administration, which Trump said during a cabinet meeting last week said he hoped would end with Harvard paying “nothing less than $500 million” as it had “been very bad.”
Three other Ivy League schools have already settled with the administration, including Columbia University, which in July agreed to pay $220 million to restore federal research money that had been denied because of allegations the university allowed antisemitism to fester on campus.
Additional reporting by agencies.
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