A federal judge in Boston ruled in favor of Harvard University Wednesday.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Mandel Ngan and Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images
A judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration illegally froze more than $2 billion in research funding at Harvard University over how officials handled alleged campus antisemitism.
Judge Allison Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Boston found that the federal government violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights and the U.S. Civil Rights Act in her 84-page opinion, writing, “We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other.” She added that Harvard is “currently, even if belatedly” taking action against antisemitism.
Harvard sued the Trump administration in April after the federal government froze $2.2 billion in funding when the Ivy League university rejected demands to enact a far-reaching slate of changes that would have overhauled admissions, governance, hiring and much more.
Burroughs, an Obama appointee, appeared skeptical of the Trump administration’s claims in a July hearing, telling government lawyers that they failed to back up claims Harvard did not appropriately address antisemitism. She also ruled against the administration in another case in June, temporarily blocking the government from halting Harvard’s ability to host international students.
Burroughs wrote Wednesday that “Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did,” but “the record … does not reflect that fighting antisemitism” was the “true aim” of the defendants and such efforts “cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment.”
The ruling comes as rumors of a Harvard settlement with the federal government continue to swirl. The Trump administration has demanded a $500 million settlement that would force other changes to admissions and discipline policies, similar to agreements made by its Ivy League peers Columbia University and Brown University.
Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement Wednesday that “the ruling affirms Harvard’s First Amendment and procedural rights, and validates our arguments in defense of the University’s academic freedom, critical scientific research, and the core principles of American higher education.”
Wednesday’s legal ruling also prompted celebration from free speech groups and others.
“Today, a federal court echoed what [the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression] has said all along: The Trump administration trampled Harvard University’s First Amendment rights and broke civil rights law when it yanked billions in federal grants and contracts over alleged Title VI violations,” FIRE wrote in a statement.
“This is a huge win for all of American higher education, for science, and for free and critical thought in this country,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors. “Time and again, Trump has tried to restrict speech and cripple lifesaving university research. As today’s victory shows, Trump’s war on higher education is unconstitutional. We will continue to stand up and fight back against these attempts to dismantle our universities, terrify students and faculty, and punish hospitals and scientists for not bowing to authoritarianism. And we will win.”
The American Council on Education praised Burroughs’s ruling.
“We are pleased to see a federal court affirm what we always knew to be true: The Trump administration has ignored the law in pursuing politically motivated attacks on Harvard and other institutions,” said Peter McDonough, general counsel for ACE. “We urge the administration to abandon these harmful attacks and instead work to restore the partnership that has made colleges and universities the engine of American innovation for decades.”
Judging from the Department of Education’s response to the ruling, that seems unlikely.
“In an unsurprising turn of events, the same Obama-appointed judge that ruled in favor of Harvard’s illegal race-based admissions practices—which was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court—just ruled against the Trump Administration’s efforts to hold Harvard accountable for rampant discrimination on campus,” spokesperson Madi Biedermann wrote in an emailed statement. “Cleaning up our nation’s universities will be a long road, but worth it.”
In a post on X, Education Secretary Linda McMahon added, “The Trump Administration is fully committed to appealing this erroneous decision and will ensure that new taxpayer funding is not invested at any university that steadfastly refuses to uphold civil rights for all students.”
