Ema Alice: Harvard University expanded its lawsuit Tuesday against the Trump administration for freezing billions of dollars in federal funds, ratcheting up the high-stakes legal battle between the wealthiest US university and the White House.
University lawyers revised their lawsuit on the same day the federal Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said the government terminated $450 million in grants to Harvard. The US earlier froze more than $2.2 billion in funding, citing the university’s handling of alleged discrimination on campus.
In its new complaint, Harvard cited several actions taken by the administration since the university’s initial lawsuit on April 21. It claims federal agencies illegally halted the flow of funds because the university refused to submit to government control over its academic programs. President Donald Trump asserts that Harvard has failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism and fostered a climate of discrimination.
As with their earlier complaint, Harvard’s lawyers asked a federal judge in Boston to bar the government from enacting the funding freeze and declare that the US violated its First Amendment right to free speech.
“The freezes and terminations will chill Harvard’s exercise of its First Amendment rights,” according to the amended lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston. “Harvard will be unable to make decisions regarding its faculty hiring, academic programs, student admissions, and other core academic matters without fear that those decisions will run afoul of government censors’ views on acceptable levels of ideological or viewpoint diversity on campus.”
The Education Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The latest escalation comes amid one of the highest-profile standoffs in Trump’s efforts to remake much of the US economic and cultural landscape. The funding cuts at Harvard are already imperiling research projects as well as the broader ecosystem that thrives off their existence and helps drive the Massachusetts economy.
The amended complaint makes the same basic claims as the April 21 lawsuit — that a wide range of government agencies violated the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act by abruptly cutting off funding to Harvard. US District Judge Allison Burroughs has set a July 21 hearing in the case.
A representative for Harvard referred questions for comment on Tuesday’s cuts to the amended complaint.
The lawsuit refers to a May 6 letter from the National Institutes of Health that formally terminated $2.2 billion in awards, saying its grants “no longer effectuate agency priorities” because of “recent events at Harvard University involving antisemitic action.”
That letter cited “Harvard’s ongoing inaction in the face of repeated and severe harassment and targeting of Jewish students.” While NIH will generally let a grant recipient take “appropriate corrective action” after a suspension, it said “no corrective action is possible here.”
Harvard received similar letters on May 9 from the US Department of Agriculture and on May 12 from the Departments of Energy, Defense, and Housing and Urban Development, according to the complaint.
Harvard President Alan Garber has twice publicly rebuked the Trump administration for threatening the school’s independence. On Monday, he wrote to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, denying allegations of partisan political bias and warning government “overreach” threatens key freedoms. On Tuesday, the antisemitism task force hit back.
“Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination,” the task force wrote. “This is not leadership; it is cowardice. And it’s not academic freedom; it’s institutional disenfranchisement.”
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