Harvard University won a crucial legal victory in its clash with the Trump administration on Wednesday, when a federal judge said that the government had broken the law by freezing billions of dollars in research funds in the name of combating antisemitism.
The ruling may not be the final word on the matter, but the decision by Judge Allison D. Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Boston was, at the very least, an interim rebuff of the Trump administration’s campaign to remake elite higher education by force.
Although Harvard’s case centered on its research funding, the university contended that the administration had compromised its First Amendment and due process rights. Now, the judge’s decision stands to give Harvard new leverage with the White House in settlement talks that began in June.
“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,” Judge Burroughs wrote in an 84-page ruling. “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.”
She added, “Now it is the job of the courts to similarly step up, to act to safeguard academic freedom and freedom of speech as required by the Constitution, and to 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.”
Judge Burroughs’s ruling came after both the government and the university asked her to issue what is known as summary judgment — a ruling on the case’s claims without a trial. Instead, the judge relied on voluminous filings, a select batch of evidence and oral arguments in her Boston courtroom on July 21 to reach a decision. Judge Burroughs had appeared immensely skeptical of the government’s position that day but said that she had not “prejudged” the case.
Harvard sued the government in April. The Trump administration had insisted that the nation’s oldest university had became a wellspring of bigotry. Then, on April 11, it sent the school a letter trying to condition Harvard’s access to federal research money on its acquiescence to a range of demands.
Those terms included audits, the establishment of “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies, the shutdown of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and an examination of “programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.”
Harvard refused on April 14. The administration took only hours to announce it would begin cutting off funding that Harvard, like other prominent universities, had long relied on to pay for research. The university sued a week later, accusing the government of ignoring its First Amendment protections and hastily barreling past the thicket of laws and regulations that govern how federal funding can be revoked.
Alan Blinder is a national correspondent for The Times, covering education.
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