The decision is a victory for the Ivy League university, which has been locked in a months-long feud with Trump.<\/p>\n
Published On 3 Sep 20253 Sep 2025<\/p>\n
A United States federal judge has ruled that the administration of President Donald Trump violated the law when it cancelled research grants worth more than $2.2bn to Harvard University<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Wednesday decision from District Judge Allison Burroughs is a major setback for the Trump administration, which has sought to pressure universities into compliance with policies opposing pro-Palestine protests and diversity initiatives.<\/p>\n In her order, Burroughs explained that the funding cuts ran afoul of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects free speech.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Court vacates and sets aside the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters as violative of the First Amendment,\u201d the order states.<\/p>\n \u201cAll freezes and terminations of funding to Harvard made pursuant to the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters on or after April 14, 2025 are vacated and set aside.\u201d<\/p>\n Burroughs also rejected the Trump administration\u2019s claims that withholding Harvard\u2019s grants was necessary to force the university to confront campus anti-Semitism. Rather, she pointed to ulterior motives.<\/p>\n \u201cA 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\u2019s premier universities,\u201d Burroughs wrote.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s threats against Harvard have been at the centre of his administration\u2019s efforts to exert greater control over higher education<\/a>. But critics denounced those moves as attacks on academic freedom and freedom of expression.<\/p>\n Other prestigious US universities have struck deals with the government amid threats to slash federal funding.<\/p>\n Columbia University, for instance, agreed to pay the administration $220m and comply with Trump administration demands, including changes to its disciplinary practices and the hiring of a new provost to ensure \u201cbalanced\u201d curricula.<\/p>\n Brown University likewise cut a deal to restore its funding, including paying $50m to workforce training programmes in Rhode Island.<\/p>\n The University of Virginia, meanwhile, saw its president resign under threat of a Department of Justice investigation into its diversity programmes in June.<\/p>\n Trump has targeted several schools, including Columbia, for their prominent role in the antiwar protests that emerged after Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023.<\/p>\n The Trump administration argued<\/a> that those protests promoted anti-Semitism and created an unsafe environment for Jewish students. Student activists, however, have rejected those assertions.<\/p>\n The activists also publicly questioned whether Trump\u2019s actions were truly motivated by concerns about civil rights and anti-Semitism on campus.<\/p>\n Critics have argued that the Trump administration used anti-Semitism as a pretext for gaining greater control over academic activity. They also point out that instances of harassment and even violence<\/a> against pro-Palestine students have received little attention.<\/p>\n In April, as Harvard faced dramatic cuts to its federal funding, the Trump administration issued a list of a demands for the school to comply with.<\/p>\n Those demands<\/a> included changing its disciplinary practices, accepting an audit of its student admissions, and ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes.<\/p>\n