Trump admin's billions of dollars in cuts to Harvard research funding are unlawful, judge rules

A federal judge gave Harvard University a win inits legal battle against the Trump administration, ruling with the Ivy League school in its attempt to restore nearly $3 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House.

The decision from US District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston on Sept. 3 rejected the administration’s argument that it was targeting the university funds due to allegations of antisemitism on Harvard’s campus.

The judge wrote in her 84-page ruling that it was "difficult to conclude anything other than that defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities."

The decision is a major victory for Harvard, the only university to take the White House to court. The Trump administration has argued its legal fights with several universities are over campus antisemitism, but Harvard sees a bigger battle regarding its overall academic freedom and federal spending.

"We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other," Burroughs said. "Harvard is currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be."

The Trump administration has frozen or ended federal grants and contracts for the university worth nearly $3 billion.

Harvard has repeatedly said that it "cannot absorb the entire cost" of the frozen grants, and that it was working with researchers to help them find alternative funding. Harvard sued the Trump administration in April over its decision to cut funds.