Judge reverses Trump administration's cuts of billions of dollars to
Harvard University
[September 04, 2025]
By COLLIN BINKLEY and MICHAEL CASEY
BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge in Boston on Wednesday ordered the Trump
administration to reverse its cuts of more than $2.6 billion in research
funding for Harvard University, delivering a significant victory to the
Ivy League school in its battle with the White House.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled the cuts amounted to illegal
retaliation for Harvard’s rejection of the Trump administration's
demands for changes to Harvard's governance and policies.
The government had tied the funding freezes to Harvard’s delays in
dealing with antisemitism, but the judge said the university’s federally
backed research had little connection to discrimination against Jews.
“A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude
anything other than that (the government) used antisemitism as a
smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this
country’s premier universities,” Burroughs wrote. The country must fight
antisemitism, she wrote, but it also must protect the right to free
speech.
The ruling reverses a series of funding freezes that later became
outright cuts as the Trump administration escalated its fight with the
nation’s wealthiest university. The administration also has sought to
prevent the school from hosting foreign students and threatened to
revoke its tax-exempt status in a clash watched widely across higher
education.
The restoration of federal money would revive Harvard’s sprawling
research operation and hundreds of projects that sustained cuts. But
whether Harvard actually receives the federal money remains to be seen.
The government plans an immediate appeal, White House spokeswoman Liz
Huston said in a statement, calling Burroughs an “activist
Obama-appointed judge.”
“To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard University failed
to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to
plague their campus for years,” Huston said. “Harvard does not have a
constitutional right to taxpayer dollars.”
Harvard President Alan Garber foreshadowed potential battles to come
even as he said the ruling validates Harvard's fight for academic
freedom.
“Even as we acknowledge the important principles affirmed in today’s
ruling, we will continue to assess the implications of the opinion,
monitor further legal developments, and be mindful of the changing
landscape in which we seek to fulfill our mission,” Garber wrote in a
campus message.
Harvard's research scientists said they had been watching the case
closely but feared their funding would not be restored anytime soon.
“Many of us are worried that the federal government is going to appeal
this decision or find other ways to obstruct the delivery of research
dollars, despite the judge's clear statement that the funding
terminations were illegal,” said Rita Hamad, director of a center that
researches the impact of social policies on health.
Beyond the courthouse, the Trump administration and Harvard officials
have been discussing a potential agreement that would end investigations
and allow the university to regain access to federal funding. President
Donald Trump has said he wants Harvard to pay no less than $500 million,
but no deal has materialized, even as the administration has struck
agreements with Columbia and Brown.
Wednesday's federal court ruling should embolden Harvard's
administration, said historian Kirsten Weld, president of Harvard's
chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which also
prevailed in a lawsuit over the funding cuts. “We hope this decision
makes clear to Harvard's administration that bargaining the Harvard
community's rights away in a compromise with the government is
unacceptable,” Weld said.
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Harvard’s lawsuit accused the Trump administration of waging a
retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a
series of demands in an April 11 letter from a federal antisemitism
task force.
The letter demanded sweeping changes related to campus protests,
academics and admissions. It was meant to address government
accusations that the university had become a hotbed of liberalism
and tolerated anti-Jewish harassment on campus.
Harvard President Alan Garber pledged to fight antisemitism. But, he
said, 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.”
Trump officials moved to freeze $2.2 billion in research grants the
same day Harvard rejected the administration’s demands. Education
Secretary Linda McMahon declared in May that Harvard would no longer
be eligible for new grants, and weeks later, the administration
began canceling contracts with Harvard.
As Harvard fought the funding freeze in court, individual agencies
began sending letters announcing that the frozen research grants
were being terminated under a clause allowing grants to be scrapped
if they no longer align with government policies. Harvard has moved
to self-fund some of its research but warned it can’t absorb the
full cost of the federal cuts.
The judge's order reverses all of Harvard’s federal funding freezes
and cuts since April 14, and it bars the government from future cuts
that violate Harvard’s constitutional rights or run afoul of federal
law.
Burroughs sided with the university’s argument that the cuts
amounted to retaliation in violation of its First Amendment rights
and that the government put unconstitutional conditions on Harvard’s
federal money.
“As pertains to this case, it is important to recognize and remember
that if speech can be curtailed in the name of the Jewish people
today, then just as easily the speech of the Jews (and anyone else)
can be curtailed when the political winds change direction,” the
judge wrote.
Burroughs also agreed with Harvard’s claim that the government
failed to follow steps prescribed by Congress to cut federal money
under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, a federal law that
forbids discrimination in education.
The Trump administration denied the cuts were made in retaliation,
saying the grants were under review even before the April demand
letter was sent. It argues the government has wide discretion to
cancel contracts for policy reasons.
“It is the policy of the United States under the Trump
Administration not to fund institutions that fail to adequately
address antisemitism in their programs,” it said in court documents.
In a separate lawsuit filed by Harvard, Burroughs previously blocked
the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent the school from
hosting international students.
___
Binkley reported from Washington, D.C. AP reporter Aamer Madhani
contributed from Washington.
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