Judge Reinstates $2.6 billion in Harvard Research Funding

Federal District Court Judge Allison Burroughs ordered the federal government to reinstate more than $2.6 billion in research funding that it took away from Harvard University.

Burroughs ruled that the funding cuts were illegal retaliation against Harvard for its refusal to comply with government attempts to control its governance and policies. She wrote,

A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that [the government] used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities, and did so in a way that runs afoul of [federal law].

and

[…] research that has been frozen could save lives, money, or the environment, to name a few. And the research was frozen without any sort of investigation into whether particular labs were engaging in antisemitic behavior, were employing Jews, were run by Jewish scientists, or were investigating issues or diseases particularly pertinent to Jews (such as, for example, Tay-Sachs disease), meaning that the funding freezes could and likely will harm the very people [the government] professed to be protecting.

Burroughs emphasized that antisemitism must not be tolerated. She criticized Harvard as “plagued by antisemitism in recent years and could (and should) have done a better job of dealing with the issue.” But “there is, in reality, little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism.”

Donald Trump’s regime has been attacking Harvard on multiple fronts. In addition to cutting off federal grants and contracts, it threatens to revoke the university’s tax exempt status and has taken multiple approaches to keep foreign students from attending. A substantial portion of Harvard’s student body is international.

Harvard and the government have been in discussions about a settlement to end the multipronged assault along the lines of deals the government struck with Columbia University and Brown University. Trump wants Harvard to pay at least half a billion dollars before he would allow any relief. No deal has been reached so far. The Harvard community widely and vocally opposes such a deal.

The government intends to appeal rather than comply with Burroughs’ ruling.

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