President and Fellows of Harvard College v. US Department of Health and Human Services, et al.

Summary

In April 2025, Harvard University filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s freeze of roughly $2.2 to $2.3 billion in federal research funding, arguing the action was politically motivated and violated the First Amendment and federal administrative procedures. The freeze followed accusations from a federal task force that Harvard had not sufficiently addressed antisemitism and racial discrimination on campus, and subsequent agency actions sought to terminate additional grants across multiple agencies, disrupting research in medicine, climate science, artificial intelligence, and other fields.

Harvard responded by committing roughly $250 million from its endowment to sustain ongoing research and sought private partnerships to fill funding gaps, while acknowledging private funding could not replace federal support. Faculty and administrators argued the funding cuts were intended to pressure universities over speech, diversity, and governance, and Harvard’s filings contended that allegations of discrimination were being used as a pretext for punitive action.

On June 4, 2025, the National Institutes of Health briefly lifted a freeze on new grants to Harvard before reinstating it hours later amid negotiations, leaving more than 170 projects uncertain. On June 12, the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights issued a Notice of Violation finding Harvard had acted with deliberate indifference toward harassment of Jewish and Israeli students, and on September 24 referred the university to federal suspension and debarment proceedings that could jeopardize future funding.

On July 21, 2025, a federal court heard arguments on Harvard’s challenge, raising questions about executive authority, due process, and the legality of using funding leverage to influence university policy. Soon after, President Donald Trump publicly criticized the presiding judge. On September 3, the court ruled the government had unlawfully terminated roughly $2.2 billion in funding, finding the administration’s actions politically motivated and inconsistent with federal law. The Department of Justice appealed on December 12, 2025, bringing the case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Settlement negotiations extended into early 2026. On February 3, 2026, President Trump publicly escalated demands after earlier signals of a possible resolution, stating he would seek $1 billion in damages and raising the possibility of criminal enforcement. On February 13, 2026, the Justice Department filed a separate lawsuit seeking to compel Harvard to produce admissions records as part of a federal civil rights compliance investigation, which Harvard characterized as further retaliation.

By July 2026, the case had moved into the appellate phase, with briefing underway in the First Circuit. Harvard argued that the funding freeze reflected an “all-of-government” effort to coerce changes to institutional speech, governance, and academic priorities unrelated to federally funded research. On July 22, 2026, a broad coalition of legal organizations filed an amicus brief supporting Harvard, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and organizations representing a range of perspectives on civil liberties, free speech, higher education, and civil rights. The amici argued that allowing the funding restrictions to stand would create broader implications for government authority over universities and other recipients of federal funding.

Additional pressure on Harvard has included the Department of Defense ending certain graduate-level military education programs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Similar federal pressure campaigns have also appeared in disputes involving Columbia University and demands directed at the University of California, Los Angeles.