Harvard asks judge for fast ruling in $2.6 bn Trump funding freeze case

In a court filing Monday, Harvard said the US lacks evidence to prove the funding freeze was a legally justified response to antisemitism and alleged liberal bias on campus

By David Voreacos and Janet Lorin

 

Harvard University lawyers urged a federal judge to rule quickly that the Trump administration’s freeze on about $2.6 billion in federal funding is illegal and that it violated the school’s free speech and regulatory rights.  

In a court filing Monday, Harvard argued that the US has not produced enough evidence to show that the administration’s action was a legally justified response to address antisemitism and a perceived liberal bias on campus. 

 

The school asked US District Judge Allison Burroughs to grant summary judgment, meaning to move more quickly than she might in a typical lawsuit to reinstate Harvard’s funding. 

 

“The government’s rush to freeze and terminate billions of dollars in current and future federal funding to Harvard for critical research lacks the basic requisites of reasoned decisionmaking,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote in the filing in Boston federal court. 

 

As the richest and oldest US university, Harvard has become the main target of President Donald Trump’s attempts to force schools to crack down on antisemitism, remove perceived political bias and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump also wants to cap Harvard’s foreign student enrollment at 15 per cent, revoke its tax-exempt status and cancel its remaining federal contracts.

 

Burroughs has temporarily blocked both the funding freeze and a US bar on letting Harvard enroll international students, which is the subject of a separate lawsuit.

 

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

Harvard claims that the US violated the Administrative Procedure Act and its First Amendment rights by seeking to dictate decisions on faculty hiring, academic programs and student admissions. It also claims Trump retaliated against Harvard for refusing his demands to make sweeping changes at the school.

 

The school, which sued the US on April 21 over funding, demanded then that the Justice Department provide “all formal and informal communications between and among any federal agency employees involved in the decision to freeze grants to and contracts with Harvard.” 

 

Those records should “include directions by White House officials,” attorney Steven Lehotsky wrote. The government provided those records, which aren’t publicly available, to Harvard in heavily redacted form.

 

In its filing, Harvard’s lawyers wrote that the federal records confirm “the government’s rush to judgment” and that they are “devoid of any individualized assessments of Harvard’s funded projects, the University’s efforts to confront antisemitism, or any connection between the two.”

 

Rather, the records make clear that “the directive to freeze and terminate every dollar of Harvard’s research funds came directly from the White House, which dictated the form that such terminations would take and set arbitrary deadlines for particular terminations,” the school’s lawyers wrote. “That blunt-force punishment is the antithesis of reasoned agency decisionmaking.” 

 

Burroughs has ordered lawyers on both sides to file legal motions before she holds a July 21 hearing on the matter.  

 

The school made similar procedural and free-speech claims in its May 23 lawsuit over the foreign student ban that the US imposed. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shocked the campus a day earlier by immediately revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, despite the school participating in a US program for more than 70 years.

 

Noem said the school failed to answer questions about foreign students and discipline. To regain permission, Harvard was given 72 hours to provide information about foreign students, including disciplinary records and video of those engaged in protests.

 

After Harvard sued, Noem’s investigators issued a “notice of intent to withdraw” Harvard from its Student and Exchange Visitor Program ahead of a May 29 hearing. That notice appeared to address Harvard’s claim that Noem’s revocation failed to follow procedures or let the school fix its problems.

 

Under those procedures, Harvard has 30 days to submit written materials to persuade Noem’s department to forgo bouncing it from the program. Harvard is also entitled to administrative appeals if it loses.

 

At the May 29 hearing, Burroughs agreed to extend an injunction she had put in place earlier on the foreign student ban. 

 

Harvard and its president, Alan Garber, refuted some of the government’s allegations, such as denying it is a partisan institution. He has said the university improved its disciplinary procedures, and efforts to encourage diversity of thought. In a scathing report about antisemitism, Garber apologized for failing “to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community.”

 

“The government fails to acknowledge, let alone engage with, the dozens of steps Harvard has taken and committed to take to address antisemitism and bias,” the lawyers wrote in the filing on Monday.