Harvard beats Trump as judge orders US to restore $2.6 billion in funding

Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width Standard Wide Links Standard Orange Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav A federal judge sided with Harvard University in its lawsuit against the Trump administration, ordering the US government to unfreeze about 2.6 billion in funding. The judge's ruling also criticized the Supreme Court for issuing orders that seem to set precedents aside "without much explanation." Like various other rulings against the Trump administration, the Harvard case will be appealed and could end up at the highest court. The Trump administration said it pulled Harvard's funding because of antisemitism at the university. But "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," US District Judge Allison Burroughs wrote in yesterday's ruling. The US government's actions violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the First Amendment, Burroughs wrote. While Harvard's own statements say it "has been plagued by antisemitism in recent years and it could (and should) have done a better job of dealing with the issue," there is "little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism," Burroughs wrote. The government froze 2.2 billion in funding on April 14 and pulled additional funding in subsequent orders. Harvard sued the Trump administration in the District of Massachusetts in an attempt to reverse the funding cuts. *Reporting by Arstechnica.*