Ivy League university charges admin with violating law that governs federal grants and loans
Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday, arguing that the administration violated its constitutional rights when it froze more than $2 billion in Harvard grants and contracts. Without that money, the lawsuit states, Harvard “would need to operate at a significantly reduced level.”
The move, which Harvard president Alan Garber announced in a letter to colleagues, sets up a high-profile legal battle that is likely to have far-reaching implications for President Donald Trump’s efforts to take on higher education.
As part of those efforts, the administration has slashed or frozen billions in federal grants and contracts to universities across the country. Harvard’s attorneys argue that the administration’s actions violate a federal law that governs the disbursal of grants and loans which stipulates that the “termination of or refusal to grant or continue” federal financial assistance is meant to be “a remedy of last resort.”
“The Government made no effort to follow those procedures—nor the procedures provided for in Defendants’ own agency regulations—before freezing Harvard’s federal funding,” it continues. Harvard’s full complaint, filed in U.S. district court in Massachusetts, can be read here.
The lawsuit also argues there is little connection between the Trump administration’s stated goal—compelling universities to crack down on campus anti-Semitism—and the means it is using to achieve that end. That is, slashing funding that mostly goes to scientific and medical research. The cuts, Harvard’s attorneys argue, impact “medical, scientific, technological, and other research” that “aims to save American lives.” The administration “has not—and cannot—identify any rational connection between anti-Semitism concerns” and those cuts, according to the complaint, which states that Harvard is committed to “combatting anti-Semitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry” on its own accord.
Harvard’s complaint also argues that the school was already tackling the problem of campus anti-Semitism, citing a number of “changes to clarify the scope of prohibited conduct aimed at Jewish and Israeli students.” It points to the adoption in January of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, though Harvard adopted that definition only as a part of a settlement with Jewish students who had sued the school over “severe and pervasive” campus anti-Semitism. In another example, Harvard credits itself with “releasing a statement clarifying Harvard’s values” and “fostering constructive dialogue on campus.”
The 51-page complaint names as defendants the various departments participating in the Trump administration’s anti-Semitism task force, including Justice, Energy, Health and Human Services, Education, and the General Services Administration. It argues that the task force can only implement a funding freeze as a result of prolonged negotiations. “Before taking punitive action, the law requires that the federal government engage with us about the ways we are fighting and will continue to fight anti-Semitism,” Garber’s letter states. “Instead, the government’s April 11 demands seek to control whom we hire and what we teach.”
