Harvard expands lawsuit after Trump cancels $585 million more in grants

MASSACHUSETTS - Harvard University expanded its lawsuit against the Trump administration on May 13, hours after the government said it was ending about US$450 million (S$585 million) in research funding to the school.

The battle between the administration and the nation’s oldest university has been intensifying since April 11, when the government sent Harvard a list of intrusive demands in a mistakenly e-mailed missive.

After the university refused to comply,

the government froze more than US$2 billion in grants,

which prompted the school to sue in federal court in Boston.

But the litigation has done little to cow the federal government.

On May 5, Education Secretary Linda McMahon warned Harvard against even applying for federal grant money “since none will be provided”.

In its amended lawsuit on May 13, Harvard said the government had “doubled down” on its tactics as it “ratcheted up funding cuts, investigations, and threats that will hurt students from every state in the country and around the world”.

According to the university, at least half a dozen federal departments and agencies have sent notices in the last week about grants being terminated.

Ms McMahon’s letter, the university said, and other government actions left Harvard exposed to “widespread disruption of its research operations, with Harvard – and those faculty, staff and students whose salaries are supported by the frozen or terminated funding – not knowing when, or if, existing funding will resume or whether it will be available in the future”.

Harvard’s new accusations build on the case that the university filed on April 21, when it argued that the federal government had trampled on the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that governs the actions of federal agencies.

The Trump administration has demanded that Harvard make changes to admissions and hiring, submit to audits, supply new reports to the government, “immediately shutter” any programmes related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and commission an examination of “those programmes and departments that most fuel anti-Semitic harassment or reflect ideological capture”.

May 13’s filing suggests that Harvard is pursuing two tracks as it fights back.

In a letter to Ms McMahon on May 12, Harvard president Alan M. Garber used a respectful, measured tone.

Professor Garber wrote that the university and the administration had some “common ground”, and he described Harvard’s efforts to improve its culture.

In the same letter, though, he wrote that Harvard’s efforts were being “undermined and threatened by the federal government’s overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities”.

Then came May 13’s filing, adding to a fight the university is hoping a federal judge will resolve as soon as this summer. Harvard is asking the court to block the government’s moves against its research funding, effectively restoring the flow of money.

Legal experts have said that they believed Harvard’s case was strong, though they have added that the government could probably still find ways to cut off funding.

Although Harvard is by far the nation’s wealthiest university, officials there have warned that federal cuts could have devastating consequences on the campus and beyond. During Harvard’s 2024 fiscal year, the federal government spent about US$687 million on research projects at the university, a sum that accounted for about 11 per cent of the university’s revenues.

In her letter last week, Ms McMahon said Harvard was “a publicly funded institution” – even though a vast majority of Harvard’s revenues do not come from the government. She suggested it rely more on its own funds, noting that the university’s endowment, valued at more than US$53 billion, would give it a “head start”.

Much of Harvard’s endowment, though, is tied up in restricted funds and officials say the money cannot be repurposed at will.

Before Harvard submitted its updated filing on May 13, the Trump administration’s task force on anti-Semitism issued a statement that accused the university of not resolving the “pervasive race discrimination and anti-Semitic harassment” that government officials said were “plaguing” the campus.

“There is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus, and by prioritising appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support,” the task force said.

The university did not immediately comment on the statement, which included the announcement that US$450 million would be withheld. Instead, Harvard simply added more to its lawsuit. NYTIMES