Harvard tells court Trump’s funding freeze is illegal, seeks quick ruling as cuts hurt critical research

Harvard University lawyers urged a federal judge to swiftly rule the Trump administration's $2.6 billion funding freeze as illegal, citing violations of free speech and regulatory rights.

What does the Harvard court filing say?

Harvard, in a court filing Monday, said the Trump administration failed to produce enough evidence to show that its action was a legally justified way to address antisemitism and a perceived liberal bias on campus. It further urged the US District Judge Allison Burroughs to fast-track a ruling to restore its federal 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 a filing in Boston federal court, a Bloomberg report cited.

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

“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.

Harvard, in its Monday filing, also said, as reported by Reuters, that it had received 957 orders since April 14 to freeze funding for research pertaining to national security threats, cancer, infectious diseases and more since the country's oldest and wealthiest school rejected the White House list of demands.

Harvard detailed the terminated grants, including $88 million for research into pediatric HIV, $12 million for increasing the Defense Department's awareness of emerging biological threats and $8 million to better understand dark energy. The school said ending the funding would destroy ongoing research into cancer treatments, infectious disease and Parkinson's.

Harvard is a key target of President Trump’s push to curb antisemitism, end political bias, and scrap diversity programmes. He also wants to limit its foreign student intake to 15%, revoke its tax-exempt status, and cancel federal contracts.

(With inputs from Reuters and Bloomberg)