{"id":29255,"date":"2025-04-22T06:24:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T10:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=29255"},"modified":"2025-04-22T06:24:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T10:24:30","slug":"harvard-university-sues-trump-administration-to-stop-funding-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/04\/22\/harvard-university-sues-trump-administration-to-stop-funding-freeze\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvard University sues Trump administration to stop funding freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ssrcss-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration claiming that its freezing of federal grants worth billions of dollars is unlawful.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Its president, Alan M Garber, announced the action on Monday in a letter to the university community which said the $2bn funding freeze would hamper critical disease research.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Harvard, the world&#8217;s richest university, last week rejected a list of demands that the Trump administration said was designed to curb diversity initiatives and fight anti-semitism at the school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In response to the lawsuit, the White House said the &#8220;gravy train of federal assistance&#8221; was coming to an end.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ssrcss-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-7uxr49-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Funding cuts have also been implemented at other elite universities, and a new government anti-semitism task force has identified at least 60 universities for review.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">President Donald Trump has accused universities of failing to protect Jewish students during last year&#8217;s campus protests against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ssrcss-1le81vw-ListContainer e5tfeyi0\">\n<ul role=\"list\">\n<li>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c20z60vxvmjo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Harvard has stood up to Trump. How long can it last?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In Monday&#8217;s letter, Mr Garber said: &#8220;The consequences of the government&#8217;s overreach will be severe and long-lasting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Studies on pediatric cancer, Alzheimer&#8217;s disease and Parkinson&#8217;s disease would be affected, he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;In recent weeks, the federal government has launched a broad attack on the critical funding partnerships that make this invaluable research possible,&#8221; the school&#8217;s lawsuit said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said the withholding of federal funding violated Harvard&#8217;s constitutional rights and was being used as &#8220;leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking at Harvard&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Trump administration has signalled that another $1bn of federal funding could be suspended. Harvard receives about $9bn in total annually, which is mostly spent on research.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Harvard&#8217;s tax exemption status and its ability to enroll international students could also be under threat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mr Garber, who is Jewish, acknowledged Harvard&#8217;s campus, located in Massachusetts, has had issues with anti-semitism but said he had established task forces aimed at the problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said the university would release the report of two task forces that looked into anti-semitism and anti-Muslim bias.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Separately, the Trump administration has targeted other private Ivy League institutions including suspending $1bn at Cornell University and $510 million at Brown University. Federal dollars also play an outsized role there in funding new scientific breakthroughs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Others such as Columbia University, the epicentre of pro-Palestinian campus protests last year, have agreed to some demands after $400 million of federal funds was threatened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The demands to Harvard included agreeing to government-approved external audits of the university&#8217;s curriculum as well as hiring and admission data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In response, Harvard released a blistering letter rejecting what it described as a &#8220;takeover&#8221; by the federal government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former US President Barack Obama, a Harvard alum, has said he supported the university, calling the cash freeze unlawful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The White House responded Monday night in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Polling by Gallup last summer suggested that confidence in higher education had been falling over time among Americans of all political backgrounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That was partly driven, the survey said, by a growing belief that universities push a political agenda. The decline was particularly steep among Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c4grwkyxgjwo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration claiming that its freezing of federal grants worth billions of dollars is unlawful. Its president, Alan M Garber, announced the action on Monday in a <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/04\/22\/harvard-university-sues-trump-administration-to-stop-funding-freeze\/\" title=\"Harvard University sues Trump administration to stop funding freeze\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[285,5777,342],"class_list":{"0":"post-29255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-harvard-university","11":"tag-massachusetts","12":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29257,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29255\/revisions\/29257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}