Federal judge blocks Trump attempt to freeze more than $2 billion in Harvard funds

A U.S. judge in Boston on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to terminate roughly $2.2 billion in federal research funding for Harvard University — marking a major victory for the nation’s oldest college, which has sparred with Trump officials for months over federal funding.

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs rejected the Trump administration’s assertion that it was attempting to strip Harvard of the billions in federal funding due to allegations of antisemitism, or the university’s failure to comply with the recommendations of a federal antisemitism task force. 

“A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities,” Burroughs said in the 84-page decision. 

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“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 said in her order.

“Harvard is currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be,” she added.

The decision by Burroughs is a major victory for the university. It comes months after lawyers for Harvard sued the Trump administration in April over the administration’s attempts to freeze more than $2.2 billion in federal funding and block off other grant money, which lawyers for the university argued in court amounted to an unconstitutional “pressure campaign” to influence and exert control over its academic programs.

The Trump administration, for its part, accused Harvard of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.” 

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Lawyers for the Trump administration also told Burroughs that they had “every right” to cancel the funding after Harvard refused to comply with the demands made by a federal antisemitism task force, which they sought to frame in court as a mere contract issue, and one that should be heard in a different court. 

Both the Justice Department and lawyers for Harvard University had requested that Burroughs, an Obama appointee, decide the case via summary judgment by early September — a timeline that allowed them to avoid a lengthy trial before the start of the new school year.

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Burroughs had ordered both sides to court for lengthy arguments in July, and ended the hearing by saying she would issue a ruling after she had sufficient time to weigh the matters presented before her in court.

The ruling Wednesday is a victory for Harvard in its months-long legal fight with the Trump administration.

“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.” Madi Biedermann, a senior communications official for the Department of Education, told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Cleaning up our nation’s universities will be a long road, but worth it.” 

Since Trump took office in January, the Trump administration has targeted Harvard with investigations from six separate federal agencies — prompting lawyers for the university to argue this year that the efforts were nothing more than a pressure campaign designed to coerce them into compliance with the administration’s policies.

To date, Harvard is the only major university to take the Trump administration to court over these efforts.