What happened
Harvard Monday sued the Trump administration in federal court over its withholding of $2.2 billion in federal grants and contracts, arguing it violates the university’s First Amendment rights and federal civil rights law. The Trump administration froze the funding and threatened other punitive measures last week after Harvard rejected its sweeping demands for internal changes and government oversight.
Who said what
Harvard presents the “first major hurdle” in President Donald Trump’s “attempt to force change at universities that Republicans say have become hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism,” The Associated Press said. “Targeting research funding which has fueled scientific breakthroughs” has “become an easy source of leverage.”
The Trump administration “has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen” for “arbitrary and capricious” reasons, Harvard said in its lawsuit. The “consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting.” Harvard President Alan Garber said. “Taxpayer funds are a privilege,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said, and the “gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard” is “coming to an end.”
What next?
Harvard appears to have a solid case, as it “looks as though the administration is just sort of doing what it wants to without real concern for what the law is,” University of Pennsylvania law professor Kermit Roosevelt told The Washington Post. If Harvard wins, other targeted universities will likely fight back against Trump administration demands, but a loss in court could spell the “end of the resistance.”
The Trump administration withheld $2.2 billion in federal grants and contracts after Harvard rejected its demands