Judge Rules Trump Administration Violated Harvard’s First Amendment Rights by Freezing Research Grants
U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs issued her decision in the President
and Fellows of Harvard College v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
(Civil Action No. 25-cv-11048-ADB) on Sept. 3. In the lawsuit,
Harvard contended that the Trump Administration had compromised the university’s
First Amendment and due process rights when it froze $2.2 billion in research
grants, including cancer research funding.
Judge Burroughs agreed with this assertion in her ruling.
“We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights,
including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed
on the altar of the other,” Judge Burroughs wrote.
Judge Burroughs also stated in her decision that the Administration could not issue
new blockades on Harvard’s federal research funding “in retaliation for the
exercise of its First Amendment rights, or on any purported grounds of discrimination
without compliance with the terms” of civil rights law.
Harvard brought the case in April, after the Administration insisted that the university
had failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism.
On April 11, it sent
the school a letter, trying to condition Harvard’s access to federal research
money on its acquiescence to a range of demands.
ADEA joined with the American Council on Education and 29 other higher education
associations and organizations in an Amicus brief, on June 9 that agreed that the Administration’s
actions violate the First Amendment, undermined the separation of powers among
the branches of the Federal government, and exceeded the President’s executive authority.
Finally, Judge Burroughs wrote in her conclusion that, “This case, of course,
raises complicated and important legal issues, but, at its core, it concerns the
future of grants sponsoring research that promises to benefit significantly the
health and welfare of our country and the world.
Through the government’s statements
and actions, the fate of that research has now become intertwined with the issue of antisemitism at Harvard.
Antisemitism, like other types of discrimination or prejudice, is intolerable.
And it is clear, even based solely on Harvard’s own admissions, that Harvard
has been plagued by antisemitism in recent years and could (and should) have done
a better job of dealing with the issue.
That said, there is, in reality, little
connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism.
In fact, 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.
Further, their actions have jeopardized decades of research and the welfare of
all those who could stand to benefit from that research, as well as reflect a
disregard for the rights protected by the Constitution and federal statutes.”
