Court Rules in Favor of Harvard in Funding Dispute
A Boston federal judge gave Harvard University a resounding win on Wednesday, overruling the Trump administration’s move to cut more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants.
US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs declared that the reductions were retaliatory and illegal, blaming the administration for hiding behind “smokescreen” concerns of antisemitism as a vehicle for an ideologically motivated assault on top universities. The decision opens the door for hundreds of research projects delayed at Harvard to receive funding again, bringing back to life the school’s sprawling research efforts.
Antisemitism Cited as Pretext
The university administration made the case that Harvard did not do enough about on-campus antisemitism and conditioned the freeze on delayed reforms. But Burroughs dismissed that as rationale, claiming federally supported research grants had “little to no connection” to issues of campus antisemitism.
“The evidence makes it challenging to conclude anything else than that Defendants employed antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated attack,” she wrote.
The confrontation started in April, when Harvard rejected sweeping requests from a federal antisemitism task force to alter its governing, admission, and academic policies. In hours, the government froze $2.2 billion in research funds, subsequently increasing to outright cancellations.
The Trump administration also threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status and tried to prevent the university from welcoming international students. Harvard was personally asked by President Donald Trump to pay at least $500 million in any settlement, although no agreement has yet been made. Similar conflicts with Columbia and Brown have resulted in agreements, but the negotiations with Harvard are still pending.
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As the funding freeze continued, Harvard was compelled to finance part of the research in-house, threatening it could not keep taking the losses. University President Alan Garber vowed to combat antisemitism but emphasized that “no government should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The Trump administration denies that there are retaliatory motives and claims the grants had already been under consideration and that it has the right to abrogate contracts with broad scope. Officials argue that it is “the policy of the United States under the Trump Administration not to fund institutions that fail to adequately address antisemitism.”
The ruling does not end the fight. Trump has vowed to appeal if necessary, leaving Harvard’s hard-won court victory potentially vulnerable to future challenges.
