Judge says Trump administration broke law by freezing grants to Harvard

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration broke the law when it froze billions of dollars in research grants to Harvard University. With appeals likely, the dispute between the government and the nation’s oldest university moves closer to a final showdown before the Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs in Boston said the administration had violated Harvard’s First Amendment and due process rights by linking the grants to compliance with President Donald Trump’s efforts to remake the U.S. higher education system.

Burroughs rejected the administration’s claim that it was withholding nearly $3 billion in grants — much of it for medical research — to punish Harvard for its failure to protect students from antisemitism.

“We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other,” the judge wrote.

Asserting that Harvard is addressing antisemitism on its campus, Burroughs added: “Now it is the job of the courts to similarly step up, to act to safeguard academic freedom and freedom of speech as required by the Constitution, and to ensure that important research is not improperly subjected to arbitrary and procedurally infirm grant terminations, even if doing so risks the wrath of a government committed to its agenda no matter the cost.”

‘Ideologically motivated assault’

The ruling was a rebuke of the Trump administration, which has targeted elite universities for alleged discriminatory policies on admissions and hiring. Harvard has engaged in talks to reach a settlement with the administration, and other schools have paid large sums to bring federal investigations to a close. Notably, Columbia University settled with the administration for $200 million to free up $1.3 billion in research funding.

Harvard sued the administration in April days after it froze the grants after the university refused to meet several conditions. They included establishing “merit-based” admissions and hiring policies, shutting down diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and examining “programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.”

The U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services claimed Harvard and other schools discriminated against Jewish students by failing to rein in pro-Palestinian demonstrations in 2024. The administration has also attempted to deport some international students involved in those protests.

But Burroughs wrote that her review of evidence in Harvard’s lawsuit “makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that [the administration] used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.”

“Further,” she wrote, “their actions have jeopardized decades of research and the welfare of all those who could stand to benefit from that research, as well as reflect a disregard for the rights protected by the Constitution and federal statutes.”

Neither the White House nor Harvard immediately responded to the ruling.

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