Harvard’s lawsuit sets up monumental clash between America’s most prestigious university and the Trump administration

By TuAnh Dam, CNN

(CNN) — Harvard University’s lawsuit against the Trump administration has set up a titanic clash between America’s most prestigious university and the federal government over academic freedom, federal funding and campus oversight.

The legal showdown over frozen federal funds will likely will take years to play out and could end up at the Supreme Court.

The nation’s oldest university, Harvard has emerged as a symbol of resistance against President Donald Trump, who has been trying to “reclaim” colleges and universities and has framed the conflict as a fight against antisemitism. The university says the White House is trying to control the Harvard community.

The Trump administration has already rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion programs, arrested international students and revoked their visas, and frozen federal funding for schools that refused to submit to its demands.

Harvard said the Trump administration has cut the funds to gain “leverage” over the university and that the move is part of a “pressure campaign” to force the school to submit to governmental control, according to court documents.

The government’s actions “threaten Harvard’s academic independence” and “are part of a broader effort by the Government to punish Harvard for protecting its constitutional rights,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote.

Demands for ‘immediate cooperation’

The escalation between Harvard and the Trump administration intensified quickly, according to court documents.

In March, the federal government sent a letter to Harvard saying the school was being investigated for its failures to “curb or combat” antisemitism on campus. A similar letter with demands for policy changes had been sent to Columbia University, and federal agencies soon announced it would review more than $5 billion in grants with the Ivy League school.

Columbia later announced several changes to address the Trump administration’s demands, an apparent concession to the federal government.

The White House continued targeting universities — Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern all had funds frozen or suspended — and sent Harvard a list in April of policy changes it wanted implemented, demanding “immediate cooperation” if the university wanted to “maintain Harvard’s financial relationship with the federal government.”

The list included eliminating the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs, banning masks at campus protests, merit-based hiring and admissions reforms and reducing the power held by faculty and administrators “more committed to activism than scholarship.”

Harvard called the demands “draconian” and publicly rebuked the Trump administration, saying it would not “surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

The Trump administration retaliated by freezing $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contract value, making plans to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and threatening the school’s ability to host international students.

The school would sue days later.

The New York Times later reported that the letter had been “unauthorized” and shouldn’t have been sent to Harvard.

‘Severe and long-lasting’ consequences

Billions of dollars, along with jobs, research and Harvard’s ability to administer financial aid are not the only things at stake. The “standing of American higher education,” is also on the table, Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement.

Harvard, the world’s wealthiest university, has an endowment of $53 billion, which could help cushion cuts. About 80% of that money is earmarked for financial aid, scholarships, faculty chairs, academic programs or other projects, according to the school. The remaining 20% is intended to sustain the institution’s future.

But the Trump administration’s threats against Harvard’s tax-exempt status and its ability to host international students could put more pressure on the university’s funding, and more federal money could get withheld.

The National Institutes of Health announced Monday it would pull medical research funding from universities with diversity and inclusion programs. Of the $686 million in Harvard’s federal research funding in fiscal year 2024, $488 million came from NIH, according to the Harvard Crimson.

The government is “slamming on the brakes” on research and the “victims will be future patients,” Garber said. Research on childhood cancer, infectious disease outbreaks and how to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield would all be affected, Garber added.

The indiscriminate cuts, he said, would undermine America’s position as a global leader in innovation.

“The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting,” Garber said.

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