BOSTON – A federal judge in Boston has dealt a big blow to the Trump administration’s plans to stop giving Harvard University federal money. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said on Wednesday that the government illegally cancelled around $2.2 billion in funding given to the Ivy League school. The decision stops the government from freezing or cutting money in the future and ends a sequence of financial freezes and cuts.
The ruling is a big gain for Harvard, which has engaged in a legal fight with the Trump administration for months. The conflict started after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and the war in Gaza that followed. This sparked a wave of pro-Palestinian rallies on college campuses. The Trump administration took action against Harvard, just like it did against other Ivy League institutions like Columbia. They said the university wasn’t doing enough to fight antisemitism on campus.
Judge Burroughs, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, said in a sharply worded opinion that the government had used antisemitism as a “smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” She said that looking at the administrative record made it “hard to come to any other conclusion” than that the government’s activities constituted an unlawful attempt to control the “intellectual conditions” on campus.
Alan Garber, the president of Harvard, has said that Jewish and Israeli students on campus were treated “viciously and unacceptably.” He did, however, say that the administration’s demands went much beyond just dealing with antisemitism. In a letter from a federal task force on April 11, the White House told Harvard to reform how it is run, how it hires and admits students to make sure that all points of view are represented and to eliminate some academic programs. Harvard believes that the money is important for scientific and medical research. When Harvard didn’t give in to these requests, the administration cut funds.
The Trump administration has denied retaliating, saying that it has the right to cancel government contracts for policy reasons and that its actions were appropriate since Harvard didn’t do enough to fight antisemitism. The administration has said it will appeal the judgment, and a White House official said, “We are confident we will ultimately prevail in our efforts to hold Harvard accountable.”
Judge Burroughs has ruled in favor of Harvard in legal fights with the Trump administration before. In a different case, she had already stopped the government from stopping the school from hosting international students. Harvard has chosen to battle the cuts in court, while other universities, including Columbia and Brown, have reached deals with the administration to get their funding back. This decision is being keenly followed by colleges and universities across the country.