Harvard University has notched a key legal win in its effort to stop the Trump administration from freezing billions of dollars in research funding, as a judge in Massachusetts agreed that the freeze orders were “arbitrary and capricious.”
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs granted (PDF) Harvard’s motion for summary judgment on Sept. 3, ordering that all freezes and funding cancellations are to be “vacated and set aside.”
Harvard will “continue to assess the implications of the opinion,” University President Alan Garber wrote in a statement. The university celebrated the ruling for affirming its First Amendment and procedural rights and validating its arguments “in defense of the University’s academic freedom, critical scientific research, and the core principles of American higher education," Garber added.
The university filed a lawsuit against the administration in April after a back-and-forth with the government culminated in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) freezing $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in “multi-year contract value.” The government and its Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism had warned Harvard and other elite universities to “take the problem seriously and commit to meaningful change if they wish to continue receiving taxpayer support.”
HHS ultimately pulled the funding after Harvard refused to comply with a list of demands (PDF) the Trump administration had issued in the name of combating antisemitism. In taking the matter to the courts, Harvard argued that the government’s funding decision violated the First Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, pointing out that the administration “failed to provide a reasoned explanation” for how the funding freeze would further the goal of ending antisemitism.
Harvard warned at the time that the lost funds threatened research in fields such as cancer, heart disease and infectious diseases.
After hearing the arguments, the court determined that while President Donald Trump and his administration are right to use “all lawful means” to fight antisemitism, their demands were separate from the true aim of the Harvard funding freeze.
In the court’s opinion, Judge Burroughs opined that is now on the courts to “act to safeguard” constitutional rights to academic freedom and freedom of speech and “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.”
In a July Truth Social post, President Trump vowed to “IMMEDIATELY appeal, and WIN” if the judge were to side with the university.
Harvard is one of many universities facing federal research funding cuts alongside Princeton University, Columbia University, Brown University, Cornell University, Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania. Some schools opted to strike deals with the government, agreeing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to unlock funding.