At First Circuit, Trump admin disputes judge’s authority to restore research funding to Harvard

The Trump administration froze $2.6 billion in the school’s grant funding on the basis that it didn’t crack down hard enough on pro-Palestine protestors in 2024.(CN) — A First Circuit panel on Monday appeared dubious of the Trump administration’s argument that Harvard University was “indifferent” to antisemitism on its campus, a claim the government has used to justify canceling more than $2 billion in grant funding for health research at the Ivy League school.That funding has since been ordered restored after a lower court found the freeze to be unlawfully retaliatory last September. But the government is seeking to overturn that finding amid its escalating tensions with Harvard and higher education, broadly.Monday’s appellate panel noted that Harvard has settled private lawsuits over antisemitism concerns in the past, implying that the school must have taken some steps to acknowledge it. U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch, a Bill Clinton appointee, suggested the government appeared to ignore this when terminating the grant funding in the first place.“There are no findings, there was no investigation, there was simply an announcement: ‘We’re terminating,’ against that backdrop,” Lynch said. “It rather looks like the administration didn’t want to have to cope with what the law and the facts of the case presented under both Title VI and the Constitution.”Harvard sued the administration in April 2025 after the White House sent it a letter outlining 10 conditions the university must meet — including screening international students for their beliefs, installing administrators aligned with Trump’s political agenda and turning over internal reports on antisemitism — or risk losing billions in research funding already greenlit by Congress.That funding was allocated for research on cancer, infectious diseases, environmental health, neurological diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, artificial intelligence and military advancements.In her now-contested ruling, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs sided with Harvard last year in finding the government was dangling the funding over its head “as leverage to gain control of academic decision making.” She granted summary judgment in the school’s favor, demanding that the funding be restored.“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, and did so in a way that runs afoul of the APA, the First Amendment and Title VI,” the Barack Obama appointee wrote in an order on Sept. 3, 2025.The government claims she never should have made the ruling at all — the case is a Tucker Act matter for the Court of Federal Claims, argued Michael Velchik, senior counsel in the civil division of the Department of Justice.He pointed to a 2025 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the administration to gut roughly $800 million in National Institutes of Health funding on the same basis.“The Supreme Court drew a line,” Velchik told the court. “Justice [Amy Coney] Barrett distinguished between challenges to policy documents on the one hand, that they be heard in federal district court, and challenges to grant determinations on the other hand, which must go to the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act.”Lynch still seemed unconvinced by that argument, noting the relevance of the Title VI antidiscrimination law, which does have standing in federal court.“The stated reasons are to prevent Harvard from discriminating and to combat antisemitism, and an assertion that Harvard has been deliberately indifferent to antisemitism,” she said. “Those are the precise topics covered by Title VI.”The panel also heard arguments in a parallel case brought by higher education unions like the American Association of University Professors, who sued on the same basis. U.S. Circuit Judge Gustavo Gelpí, a Joe Biden appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judge Joshua Dunlap, a Donald Trump appointee, joined Lynch on the bench.The panel didn’t immediately rule following arguments in either case.It is just one of several litigious battles between the Trump administration and a defiant Harvard, which is also warding off an attack from the Justice Department for its refusal to turn over race-related admissions records to the government.After pro-Palestine encampments spread across college campuses nationwide in 2024, several universities including Columbia, Brown and Northwestern made deals to resolve antisemitism claims with the Trump administration. Harvard has remained steadfast in its opposition to settling with the government.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads