Harvard University was back in court Monday for a hearing in its funding fight case against the Trump administration, a key step in a battle over restoring more than $2 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House this spring.
US District Judge Allison Burroughs heard oral arguments from Harvard’s legal team and a lawyer for the Department of Justice over the school’s request she declare the funding freeze unlawful — and offered her own challenges to the government’s legal rationale. The hearing marked a critical moment for what’s become the flashpoint of a major clash over academic freedom, federal funding, and campus oversight — and a belief inside the White House that targeting the country’s most elite academic institutions is a winning political issue for President Donald Trump.
Harvard lawyer Steven Lehotsky argued Monday the government is in “blatant and unrepentant violation” of the First Amendment, as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Cutting funding under the guise of combatting antisemitism was “arbitrary and capricious,” Lehotsky said.
The cuts will “devastate long-running research projects, eviscerate labs, and hurt careers,” he said.
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Author: Joe Weber
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