Harvard sues the Trump administration, taking the fight over federal funding and academic freedom to court
By Michelle Watson, Brad Lendon, Matt Egan and Jeff Winter, CNN
(CNN) — Harvard University sued the Trump administration Monday in a new escalation of the fight over institutional oversight, independence and federal funding for the Ivy League school.
University President Alan M. Garber said in a letter to the Harvard community that the administration’s recent actions — including a $2.2 billion federal funding freeze at Harvard, with even more money potentially on the line — “have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world.”
The Trump administration is demanding Harvard give it access to all university reports on antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias on campus generated since October 2023, as it ramps up a confrontation with the school that risks billions in federal money amid a broader push to bring elite US colleges in line with its political ideology.
“The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end,” White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement Monday evening. “Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege.”
Harvard emerged as the first elite US university to publicly rebuke the White House’s demands, which Trump officials have said aim to combat antisemitism following contentious campus protests in response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“Under whatever name, the Government has ceased the flow of funds to Harvard as part of its pressure campaign to force Harvard to submit to the Government’s control over its academic programs. That, in itself, violates Harvard’s constitutional rights,” Harvard wrote in the lawsuit.
“The Government has not – and cannot – identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation,” the suit, filed Monday, said.
Garber, who is Jewish, said in his letter he knows there are valid concerns to the rise of antisemitism and that the university has task force groups designated to help “address intolerance” in our community.
“Make no mistake: Harvard rejects antisemitism and discrimination in all of its forms and is actively making structural reforms to eradicate antisemitism on campus,” the school’s lawsuit says. “But rather than engage with Harvard regarding those ongoing efforts, the Government announced a sweeping freeze of funding for medical, scientific, technological, and other research that has nothing at all to do with antisemitism and Title VI compliance.”
The university said it’s not looking for money.
“Instead, it seeks an order declaring unlawful and setting aside sweeping agency action taken in violation of Harvard’s constitutional rights under the First Amendment and its rights guaranteed by statute and regulation,” the suit said.
The Trump administration has said it would freeze more than $2.2 billion in grants and contracts after the Ivy League school refused to submit to demands, including that it eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs; ban masks at campus protests; enact merit-based hiring and admissions reforms; and reduce the power of faculty and administrators the White House has said are “more committed to activism than scholarship.”
The university must turn over all reports generated by school task forces on combating antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias on campus, including drafts never released to the public, a letter Saturday from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights to Harvard leadership says.
The letter, published by The Free Press, also requests the names of anyone involved in preparing the reports and says they should be made available for interviews by federal officials.
The letter is among the latest twists in the Trump administration’s growing fight with Harvard. It comes as some Jewish organizations and students at Harvard say the White House’s recent threats – from pulling research funding to ending its eligibility to host international students – are not making them safer or more welcome but instead, as some wrote, “pawns in a broader political agenda.”
Another $1 billion in federal health research contracts to Harvard could also be withheld, The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend, as the Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of the university and the administration has threatened Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students.
Other universities, including Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern, also have seen federal funding paused amid similar demands.
WSJ: Another $1B in jeopardy for Harvard
The threat of rescinding a further $1 billion in federal money follows the White House’s fury after Harvard made public an April 11 letter from the federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, demanding it allow federal government oversight of admissions, hiring and the ideology of students and staff – on top of other demands laid out in a prior letter – people familiar with Harvard’s response said, the Journal reported Sunday.
CNN has reached out to Harvard and the White House for comment on the Journal’s report.
Harvard strongly rejected the Trump administration’s demands in the April 11 letter, with Garber, the school’s president, saying in an April 14 letter to the academic community the “University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”
The demands go beyond the power of the federal government, and the majority “represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” rather than combating antisemitism, the university president has said.
Anticipating rocky relations with the incoming administration, Harvard in January hired high-powered lobbying firm Ballard Partners, and a source confirmed to CNN the relationship is ongoing. Ballard has deep ties to Trump and previously employed White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The latest back-and-forth between the US government and America’s oldest university marks a sea change in how the Trump administration intended to engage with Harvard, according to the Journal.
Before the April 11 letter’s release, “the administration was planning to treat Harvard more leniently than Columbia University, but now officials want to apply even more pressure to the nation’s most prominent university, according to the people,” the newspaper reports. “People familiar with Harvard’s response say there was no agreement to keep the letter private, and that its contents – including requirements that Harvard allow federal government oversight of admissions, hiring and the ideology of students and staff – were a nonstarter.”
Columbia University, on the heels of President Donald Trump’s revocation of $400 million in federal funding over campus protests, last month made policy changes in a dispute over federal funding, including restrictions on demonstrations, new disciplinary procedures and immediately reviewing its Middle East curriculum.
Although it has prompted a furious response from the university, the letter sent to Harvard April 11 may not have been meant to be sent at that time, The New York Times reported Friday. It was believed inside the administration the letter first would be circulated to members of the task force, the Times reported, citing two unnamed people familiar with the matter.
A White House official confirmed its authenticity Saturday, telling CNN the White House “stands by the letter.” Garber said the demands go beyond the power of the federal government, and the majority “represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard” rather than combating antisemitism.
Feds’ possible overreach concerns ADL chief
The Anti-Defamation League’s CEO and national director also has expressed concern the Trump administration may be overreaching in the Harvard case, looking to punish the university outside of the antisemitism debate that has simmered since last spring’s protests, which sparked rampant fear among Jewish students and staff on many US campuses.
“The issue of combating antisemitism on campus should be addressed on its own process and merits. Other debates on higher education may be important, but they can and should be resolved separate from fighting antisemitism on campus,” Jonathan Greenblatt wrote Friday in an article published in the Times of Israel.
Similarly, Harvard’s chapter of Hillel, a global advocacy organization for Jewish college students, wrote last week on social media: “(D)espite positive elements of the government’s recent demands (such as streamlining disciplinary processes), the current, escalating federal assault against Harvard – shuttering apolitical, life-saving research; targeting the university’s tax-exempt status; and threatening all student visas, including those of Israeli students who are proud veterans of the Israel Defense Forces and forceful advocates for Israel on campus – is neither focused nor measured, and stands to substantially harm the very Jewish students and scholars it purports to protect.”
An open letter signed by more than 100 Jewish students at Harvard says tying government academic demands to complaints of antisemitism makes them “pawns in a broader political agenda.”
“We have a variety of views on what actions constitute antisemitism and how to address it,” reads the letter shared with CNN. “But we overwhelmingly oppose these drastic funding cuts to our university.”
Some Harvard critics unite against threats
The effort by Harvard leadership to publicly fight back against the administration may draw Trump’s ire, but it is uniting stakeholders on campus, an employee told CNN.
“Garber’s (April 14) letter sent a jolt of energy through the campus,” said the employee, who declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly for the university. “The Trump administration’s demands were so far beyond the pale. Nothing has united Harvard’s deeply fractured campus more.”
Some prominent Harvard alumni are also hailing the university’s defiance in the face of government pressure.
The White House threats “will backfire as even those most critical of the university pull together against dictatorial overreach and as the political motivations behind the prosecution becomes apparent,” Larry Summers, a former Harvard president and PhD recipient who was a top economic official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, said in a post to X.
Summers has been very critical in the past of how Harvard leaders have handled antisemitism on campus but is now defending the institution’s response to the government’s demands.
“An enemies list did not work out for President Nixon. It won’t for President Trump,” Summers wrote.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a graduate of Harvard and a Democrat, said Trump’s push to revoke Harvard’s not-for-profit status is “outrageous,” she told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “It’s part of this continued playbook that Donald Trump has been using, which is to silence critics.”
“First he went after the law firms, then he went after companies, then he went after everyday Americans. Now he’s going after colleges and universities, using any and all tactics to try to shut them down, to silence them,” Healey said.
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny, Kara Scannell, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Betsy Klein, Andy Rose, Nicki Brown and Liz Enochs contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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