Harvard University is suing President Trump's administration over its threats to freeze billions in research funding.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced last week that it was freezing $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in “multi-year contract value” to the university, saying it wanted the world's richest school to curtail certain diversity initiatives while also seeking to ensure it further fights anti-semitism.
Harvard warned at the time that the lost funds risk halting research on cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases and more.
It followed a letter of demands (PDF) on April 11 from the administration calling on the university to implement multiple wide-reaching changes, including reducing the power of students and untenured faculty in university governance, reporting international students who are “supportive of terrorism” to the federal government and bringing in an external group to audit multiple programs accused of antisemitism.
The university escalated its response Monday, filing a lawsuit (PDF) in federal court in Massachusetts, accusing the Trump administration of "withholding … federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard.”
The document explained that “within hours” of HHS announcing the funding freeze order, the university “began receiving stop work orders.”
“The freezing of federal funds amounts to final agency action and has put vital medical, scientific, technological, and other research at risk,” the April 21 lawsuit states. “And that risk is growing,” the authors add, citing recent reports that the government plans to pull another $1 billion in health research funding from the university.
The lawsuit argues that the administration is trying to "coerce and control Harvard" in a way that disregards core First Amendment protections, including the university’s right to "academic freedom."
In an open letter also published Monday, Harvard President Alan Garber, M.D., Ph.D., wrote that the "consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting [...] As opportunities to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease are on the horizon, the government is slamming on the brakes."
Garber adds that specific research that the "[U.S.] government has put in jeopardy" includes that into childhood cancer survivors, as well as areas such as predicting "the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield."
The Trump administration announced earlier this month that it was reviewing around $8.7 billion in funding for Harvard and the likes of Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
These “preeminent Boston hospitals” are independent corporate entities that receive government funding directly from federal agencies rather than via Harvard, yesterday’s lawsuit pointed out.
“The government has not—and cannot—identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation,” the lawsuit continued.
“Nor has the government acknowledged the significant consequences that the indefinite freeze of billions of dollars in federal research funding will have on Harvard’s research programs, the beneficiaries of that research, and the national interest in furthering American innovation and progress.”
The latest lawsuit follows an effort by Harvard professors and the American Association of University Professors earlier this month to sue the administration over the threats of funding cuts, calling the ultimatums an existential “gun to the head” for a university.
Other schools facing funding cuts from the administration include Princeton University, Columbia University, Brown University, Cornell University, Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania.