CNN
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Harvard University will be back in court Monday for a major hearing in its funding fight case against the Trump administration, the next step in a battle over restoring more than $2 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House this spring.
US District Judge Allison Burroughs is expected to hear oral arguments from Harvard’s legal team and lawyers for the Department of Justice over the school’s request that she declare the funding freeze unlawful. It marks a critical moment for what’s become the flashpoint of a major clash over academic freedom, federal funding, and campus oversight — and a belief inside the White House that targeting the country’s most elite academic institutions is a winning political issue for President Donald Trump.
Harvard has warned that the Trump administration’s funding freeze has put the university’s medical, scientific and technological research at risk, and that the government is enacting a “pressure campaign to force Harvard to submit to the Government’s control over its academic programs,” according to the original legal complaint filed in April.
The university claimed in the complaint that the government is violating the First Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. It also argued the funding freeze, which could be made permanent, has been “unreasonable and unreasoned.”
The Trump administration, meanwhile, says that Harvard has failed to address antisemitism on campus in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and that it is now acting within its authority.
“It is the policy of the United States under the Trump Administration not to fund institutions that failed to adequately address antisemitism in their programs,” the administration has argued.
Harvard says it is taking substantive steps to address root causes of antisemitism, including updating its rules around using campus space for protests, reviewing disciplinary processes, and expanding training on combating antisemitism.
Asked for comment ahead of the hearing, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told CNN in a statement, “The Trump Administration’s proposition is simple and commonsense: Don’t allow antisemitism and DEI to run your campus, don’t break the law, and protect the civil liberties of all students.”
Fields continued, “We are confident that Harvard will eventually come around and support the president’s vision, and through good-faith conversations and negotiations, a good deal is more than possible.”
The administration also says the court lacks jurisdiction, which means, in its view, this case should be decided in a different type of court.
In April, the Trump administration wrote to Harvard President Alan Garber demanding governance and leadership reform, merit-based hiring and admissions reform, viewpoint diversity in admissions and hiring, and the discontinuation of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, among other demands.
The administration has terminated $2.4 billion in federal awards for Harvard, representing more than 950 ongoing research projects.
The university says the scientific research being punished by the federal funding freeze has nothing to do with antisemitism, pointing to its cutting-edge cancer prevention and treatment work, efforts to understand neurodegenerative disorders such as like Parkinson’s disease, and boosting awareness and understanding of emerging biological threats.
In one filing from Harvard last month, a Defense Department official told others in the Trump administration that a $12 million biological threat research grant shouldn’t be terminated because it posed “grave and immediate harm to national security.”
A small circle of Harvard leadership and White House officials had been negotiating toward a deal to end multiple legal battles between the administration and the university — including a separate lawsuit against the Trump administration over its earlier this year to hastily revoke the school’s ability to enroll international students. Burroughs, of the federal court in Boston, ruled in Harvard’s favor in that case, though the decision didn’t preclude the administration from undertaking a formal review process that could eventually result in the university being unable to host foreign students and scholars.
\Trump appeared to indicate that those talks were bearing fruit last month.
“Many people have been asking what is going on with Harvard University and their largescale improprieties that we have been addressing, looking for a solution. We have been working closely with Harvard, and it is very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so,” he said in a June 20 social media post.
But the negotiations appeared to subsequently derail.
The administration escalated its battle with the university days later, with an investigation finding the school in “violent violation” of the Civil Rights Act, warning in a letter that a failure to immediately institute change “will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government.”
And days after that, the Department of Homeland Security sent the school administrative subpoenas regarding its Student Visitor and Exchange Program certification, seeking all relevant records, communications and other documents about Harvard’s enforcement of immigration laws.
Harvard has sent some signals it is willing to work with the Trump administration, including earlier this month when The Harvard Crimson reported that websites for Harvard College centers serving minority and LGBTQ students and women disappeared. The White House welcomed that development, viewing it as a goodwill gesture one official described as “good news.”
The Trump administration is in discussions with Columbia University and is on the cusp of a possible multimillion-dollar settlement. A group of Columbia officials attended a Thursday meeting at the White House, where, according to one source familiar with the negotiations, progress was made but a final deal was not inked.
Asked about the state of talks, Trump told CNN on July 4, “I think we’re going to probably settle with Harvard. We’re going to probably settle with Columbia. They want to settle very badly. There’s no rush.”
Asked how much money the settlement would entail, Trump said, “A lot of money.”
Harvard has asked for an expedited final decision from Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, in this case and says it must be decided “no later than September 3, 2025, which is the first date by which Harvard must start submitting this paperwork that would finally close out grant funding.”
CNN’s Devan Cole and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
