A federal judge on Wednesday gave Harvard University a landmark victory in its fight against the Trump administration, siding with the Ivy League school in its effort to restore more than $2 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House.
The decision from US District Judge Allison Burroughs rejects the administration’s argument that it was targeting the university due to antisemitism on the school’s campus.
“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,” wrote Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.
“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,” Burroughs added.
The decision is a major victory for Harvard, the only university targeted by the Trump administration to take on the White House directly in court. The administration has argued it is cracking down on antisemitism on campus, but Harvard has become the epicenter of a broader fight over academic freedom, federal spending and campus oversight.
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