Judge Hands Harvard a Huge Win

A federal judge in Boston on Wednesday ordered the reversal of the Trump administration's cuts to more than $2.6 billion in funding for research grants for Harvard University. US District Judge Allison Burroughs sided with the Ivy League school, ruling the cuts amounted to illegal retaliation for Harvard's rejection of White House demands for changes to its governance and policies, the AP reports. The ruling delivers a significant victory to Harvard in its battle with the Trump administration, which also has sought to prevent the school from hosting foreign students and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.

• The government had tied the freezes at Harvard to delays in dealing with antisemitism on its campus, but the judge said the federally funded research had little connection to antisemitism. "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," Burroughs wrote.
• Burroughs said Harvard " is currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be. She said it is now the job of the courts to "similarly step up, to act to safeguard academic freedom and freedom of speech as required by the Constitution, and to ensure that important research is not improperly subjected to arbitrary and procedurally infirm grant terminations, even if doing so risks the wrath of a government committed to its agenda no matter the cost."
• The ruling reverses a series of funding freezes that later became outright cuts as the Trump administration escalated its fight with the nation's wealthiest university. If it stands, it promises to revive Harvard's sprawling research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money.

• Harvard's lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a series of demands in an April 11 letter from a federal antisemitism task force. Trump officials moved to freeze $2.2 billion in research grants the same day Harvard rejected the administration's demands.
• Harvard was the only institution to sue over the administration's cuts to research grants. The New York Times notes that while the judge's decision may not be the final word, it is an "interim rebuff of the Trump administration's campaign to remake elite higher education by force."
• Beyond the courthouse, the Trump administration and Harvard officials have been discussing a potential agreement that would end investigations and allow the university to regain access to federal funding. President Trump has said he wants Harvard to pay no less than $500 million.