After a federal judge found that the Trump administration had violated the Constitution in freezing billions of dollars in research funding to Harvard, Rachel Hsu, a 23-year-old master’s student at the university who is from Belmont, Mass., said she was happy about the decision. But she was not dwelling on it.
Since she has been on campus, she said, “I’ve actually, like, kind of checked out” because she had been busy with orientation and other matters.
Evan Elling, a freshman from Ohio who is studying mechanical engineering, was even more ambivalent. “I was happy we’re getting more money,” Mr. Elling, 19, said. “But I need to look into it more to have a real opinion.”
The morning after the ruling, the air on campus was cool and dewy, and the atmosphere was businesslike. Many students welcomed the decision with a mix of relief and cautious optimism. But they also had a lot of other things on their minds during this first week of fall classes — chiefly, a semester’s worth of coursework ahead.
Still, almost all of the roughly 20 students who were approached on Thursday had to some extent heard of the ruling, in which a federal judge gave Harvard a significant legal victory, for now, rebuking the Trump administration’s effort to exert more influence on the university by withholding the funding.
The federal government froze Harvard’s research funding in April after the university, facing allegations that it had fostered antisemitism on its campus, refused a list of demands that included audits, the shutdown of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and other measures that could shape how Harvard admits students or hires faculty members. The push represented one part of a sweeping pressure campaign against major universities across the country that Mr. Trump and his allies have targeted for their perceived liberal bias. The administration said it planned to appeal the judge’s decision.
Landon Coles, a second-year law student, said the judge’s decision was a positive step. But he remained concerned that the university was still conceding too much to the White House, including paring back some of its diversity initiatives, and was worried about what else the university might give up to strike a deal.
“I support the goal of academic freedom,” Mr. Coles, 25, said. But he added that there were other things at stake, too.
“You don’t compromise with an administration like this,” he said, adding that weakness wasn’t an appropriate response. “You’re the richest school on the planet. You’re not going to sit here and tell me you don’t have the resources in order to fight.”
Many students who did not want to speak openly about their reactions, or who did not want to give their full names, remained anxious about what would happen next and about the administration’s other moves, including restrictions on international students. One expressed alarm about the way the administration was wielding power.
One pair of researchers from Brazil, Wal Dutra, 58, and Ken Gollob, 60, both immunologists who are conducting research with partners at Harvard, said the ruling rang as a victory for education, science and academic freedom at a time when those principles have come under attack.
The project that brought them to Harvard aims to improve the way a specific heart condition afflicting young adults in tropical climates is identified and treated. The cuts in research funding had affected their partners at Harvard, they said.
“So this has an impact that transcends Harvard’s walls into other countries,” Ms. Dutra said.
Ms. Hsu, the master’s student, described feeling disoriented in a way because, she said, she and her classmates were both on the inside and on the outside of the fight that was affecting colleges across the country.
“It feels like here, we’re both insulated from what’s going on generally, but then also very much in the heart of it,” she said. “And so it’s kind of this strange double existence.” Harvard, she went on, is at the center of this conflict. But she said that because of the liberal culture of Cambridge, Mass., where the university is located, she feels somewhat removed from “the broader cultural zeitgeist in the country.”
The previous night on campus, several students who were approached said they didn’t have an opinion or needed to be careful about what they said.
Ciara Keen, a 30-year-old neuroscience graduate student from Oregon, said she was trying to take a break from the news, though she felt guilty about that. She lamented that “we’re all kind of put in a position to continue talking about it.”
Heather Beasley Doyle contributed reporting.
Chris Hippensteel is a reporter covering breaking news and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
The post At Harvard, Judge’s Ruling on Funding Gives Students One More Thing to Ponder appeared first on New York Times.
