The Trump administration has moved to appeal a federal judge’s ruling in favor of Harvard University on research funding, signaling that its high-profile fight with the university continues.
In September, U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs ruled that the Trump administration violated the Constitution by freezing federal research funding at Harvard. Burroughs wrote that suspending and canceling more than $2 billion in research grants and other federal actions amounted to retaliation and unconstitutional coercion in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights.
Burroughs wrote 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” that had jeopardized decades of research.
The court filing did not outline the administration’s legal argument but signaled it would be appealing Burroughs’s decision.
The Trump administration has sought to compel cultural change at universities, claiming some have not done enough to combat antisemitism on campus, among other complaints. At several schools, it abruptly froze federal research funding.
Its most forceful actions have been taken against Harvard. In April, the university refused a sweeping list of demands and filed a lawsuit. The Trump administration sought to bar foreign students and scholars from Harvard, opened investigations, and threatened to block it from receiving federal funding.
The probes included one into possible violation of Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act.
After the ruling, federal grants and contracts for work in fields such as cancer research and quantum science were reinstated, and most of the funding that was owed to Harvard for that work was restored.
Late Thursday, lawyers for the government filed a notice of appeal.
A spokesman for Harvard said Friday that the September ruling reinstated “critical research funding that advances science and life-saving medical breakthroughs, strengthens national security, and enhances our nation’s competitiveness and economic priorities. We are confident that the Court of Appeals will affirm the district court’s opinion.”
An attorney for a group of faculty who separately sued the Trump administration, a case heard concurrently with Harvard’s, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. President Donald Trump had vowed to appeal even before Burroughs issued her ruling.
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