Harvards

A federal court has begun hearings in a pivotal case as Harvard seeks to force the United States government to return $2.6bn in federal funding frozen earlier this year.

A lawyer for Harvard, Steven Lehotsky, said at Monday’s hearing that the case is about the government trying to control the “inner workings” of Harvard. The funding cuts, if not reversed, could lead to the loss of research, damaged careers and the closing of labs, he said.

President Donald Trump’s administration has battered the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university with sanctions for months as it presses a series of demands on the Ivy League school, which it decries as a hotbed of liberalism and anti-Semitism.

Harvard has resisted, and the lawsuit over the cuts to its research grants represents the primary challenge to the administration in a standoff that is being widely watched across higher education and beyond.

The case is before US District Judge Allison Burroughs, who is presiding over lawsuits brought by Harvard against the administration’s efforts to keep it from hosting international students. In that case, she temporarily blocked the administration’s efforts.

At Monday’s hearing, Harvard is asking her to reverse a series of funding freezes. Such a ruling, if it stands, would revive Harvard’s sprawling scientific and medical research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money.

A lawyer for the government, Michael Velchik, said the government has the authority to cancel research grants when an institution is out of compliance with the president’s directives. He said episodes at Harvard violated Trump’s order combating anti-Semitism.

Judge questions basis for government’s findings on anti-Semitism

Burroughs pushed back, questioning how the government could make “ad hoc” decisions to cancel grants and do so across Harvard without offering evidence that any of the research is anti-Semitic.

She also argued the government had provided “no documentation, no procedure” to “suss out” whether Harvard administrators “have taken enough steps or haven’t” to combat anti-Semitism.

“The consequences of that in terms of constitutional law are staggering,” she said during Monday’s hearing. “I don’t think you can justify a contract action based on impermissible suppression of speech. Where do I have that wrong?”

Velchik said the case comes down to the government’s choosing how best to spend billions of dollars in research funding.

“Harvard claims the government is anti-Harvard. I reject that,” Velchik said. “The government is pro-Jewish students at Harvard. The government is pro-Jewish faculty at Harvard.”

Harvard’s lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a series of demands in an April 11 letter from a federal anti-Semitism task force. A second lawsuit over the cuts filed by the American Association of University Professors and its Harvard faculty chapter has been consolidated with the university’s.

The April letter demanded sweeping changes related to campus protests, academics and admissions. For example, the letter told Harvard to audit the viewpoints of students and faculty and admit more students or hire new professors if the campus was found to lack diverse points of view.

Harvard President Alan Garber has said the university has made changes to combat anti-Semitism but said no government “should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”.

Monday’s hearing ended without Burroughs issuing a ruling from the bench. A ruling is expected later in writing.

Trump’s pressure campaign has involved a series of sanctions

The same day Harvard rejected the government’s demands, Trump officials moved to freeze $2.2bn in research grants. Education Secretary Linda McMahon declared in May that Harvard would no longer be eligible for new grants, and weeks later, the administration began cancelling contracts with Harvard.

As Harvard fought the funding freeze in court, individual agencies began sending letters announcing the frozen research grants were being terminated. They cited a clause that allows grants to be scrapped if they no longer align with government policies.

Harvard, which has the nation’s largest endowment at $53bn, has moved to self-fund some of its research, but warned it can’t absorb the full cost of the federal cuts.

In court filings, the school said the government “fails to explain how the termination of funding for research to treat cancer, support veterans, and improve national security addresses antisemitism”.

The Trump administration denies the cuts were made in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the April demand letter was sent. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel contracts for policy reasons.

The research funding is only one front in Harvard’s fight with the federal government. The Trump administration also has sought to prevent the school from hosting foreign students, and Trump has threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

Finally, last month, the Trump administration formally issued a finding that the school tolerated anti-Semitism – a step that eventually could jeopardise all of Harvard’s federal funding, including federal student loans or grants. The penalty is typically referred to as a “death sentence”.

President Trump and his administration have tried several tactics to block Harvard University’s enrollment of international students, part of the White House’s effort to secure policy changes at the private Ivy League college.

Targeting foreign students has become the administration’s cornerstone effort to crack down on the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college. The block on international enrollment, which accounts for a quarter of Harvard’s students and much of its global allure, strikes at the core of Harvard’s identity. Courts have stopped some of the government’s actions, at least for now — but not all.

In the latest court order, a federal judge Friday put one of those efforts on hold until a lawsuit is resolved. But the fate of Harvard’s international students — and its broader standoff with the Trump administration — remains in limbo.

Here are the ways the Trump administration has moved to block Harvard’s foreign enrollment — and where each effort stands.

Harvard’s certification to host foreign students

In May, the Trump administration tried to ban foreign students at Harvard, citing the Department of Homeland Security’s authority to oversee which colleges are part of the Student Exchange and Visitor Program. The program allows colleges to issue documents that foreign students need to study in the United States.

Harvard filed a lawsuit, arguing the administration violated the government’s own regulations for withdrawing a school’s certification.

Within hours, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston put the administration’s ban on hold temporarily — an order that had an expiration date. On Friday, she issued a preliminary injunction, blocking Homeland Security’s move until the case is decided. That could take months or longer.

The government can and does remove colleges from the Student Exchange and Visitor Program, making them ineligible to host foreign students on their campuses. However, it’s usually for administrative reasons outlined in law, such as failing to maintain accreditation, lacking proper facilities for classes, failing to employ qualified professional personnel — even failing to “operate as a bona fide institution of learning.” Other colleges are removed when they close.

Notably, Burroughs’ order Friday said the federal government still has authority to review Harvard’s ability to host international students through normal processes outlined in law. After Burroughs’ emergency block in May, DHS issued a more typical “Notice of Intent to Withdraw” Harvard’s participation in the international student visa program.

“Today’s order does not affect the DHS’s ongoing administrative review,” Harvard said Friday in a message to its international students. “Harvard is fully committed to compliance with the applicable F-1 (student visa) regulations and strongly opposes any effort to withdraw the University’s certification.”

U.S. entry for incoming Harvard students

Earlier this month, Trump moved to block entry to the United States for incoming Harvard students, issuing a proclamation that invoked a different legal authority.

Harvard filed a court challenge attacking Trump’s legal justification for the action — a federal law allowing the president to block a “class of aliens” deemed detrimental to the nation’s interests. Targeting only those who are coming to the U.S. to study at Harvard doesn’t qualify as a “class of aliens,” Harvard said in its filing.

Harvard’s lawyers asked the court to block the action. Burroughs agreed to pause the entry ban temporarily, without giving an expiration date. She has not yet ruled on Harvard’s request for another preliminary injunction, which would pause the ban until the court case is decided. “We expect the judge to issue a more enduring decision in the coming days,” Harvard told international students Friday.

At the center of Trump’s pressure campaign against Harvard are his assertions that the school has tolerated anti-Jewish harassment, especially during pro-Palestinian protests. In seeking to keep Harvard students from coming to the U.S., he said Harvard is not a suitable destination. Harvard President Alan Garber has said the university has made changes to combat antisemitism and will not submit to the administration’s demands for further changes.

Scrutiny of visas

In late May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed U.S. embassies and consulates to start reviewing social media accounts of visa applicants who plan to attend, work at or visit Harvard University for any signs of antisemitism.

On Wednesday, the State Department said it was launching new vetting of social media accounts for foreigners applying for student visas, and not just those seeking to attend Harvard. Consular officers will be on the lookout for posts and messages that could be deemed hostile to the United States, its government, culture, institutions or founding principles, the department said, telling visa applicants to set their social media accounts to “public.”

In reopening the visa process, the State Department also told consulates to prioritize students hoping to enroll at colleges where foreigners make up less than 15% of the student body, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail information that has not been made public.

Foreign students make up more than 15% of the total student body at almost 200 U.S. universities — including Harvard and the other Ivy League schools, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal education data from 2023. Most are private universities, including all eight Ivy League schools.

Some Harvard students are also caught up in the government’s recent ban against travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 nations, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. The Trump administration last weekend called for 36 additional countries to commit to improving vetting of travelers or face a ban on their citizens visiting the United States.

F-1 and J-1 visas

Harvard sponsors more than 7,000 people on a combination of F-1 and J-1 visas, which are issued to students and to foreigners visiting the U.S. on exchange programs such as fellowships. Across all the schools that make up the university, about 26% of the student body is from outside the United States.

But some schools and programs, by nature of their subject matter, have significantly more international students. At the Harvard Kennedy School, which covers public policy and public administration, 49% of students are on F-1 visas. In the business school, one-third of students come from abroad. And within the law school, 94% of the students in the master’s program in comparative law are international students.

The administration has imposed a range of sanctions on Harvard since it rejected the government’s demands for policy reforms related to campus protests, admissions, hiring and more. Conservatives say the demands are merited, decrying Harvard as a hotbed of liberalism and antisemitism. Harvard says the administration is illegally retaliating against the university.