September 3, 2025
The Trump administration illegally froze more than $2 billion in grants earmarked for Harvard University when it failed to offer an explanation as to how cutting the funds addressed the government’s stated goal of ending antisemitism on campus, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled Wednesday.
In an 84-page order that mirrored the skepticism U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs expressed during oral arguments, the judge found that President Donald Trump’s attempt to stop $2.2 billion in grant funding ran afoul of the First Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Administrative Procedure Act.
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Judge Burroughs agreed with Harvard’s argument that the cause of ending antisemitism, which the university has acknowledged has been an issue, was merely an excuse given by the administration when Harvard refused to submit to demands its lawyers have called “unconstitutional” and an attempted “government takeover.”
“The fact that defendants’ swift and sudden decision to terminate funding, ostensibly motivated by antisemitism, was made before they learned anything about antisemitism on campus or what was being done in response, leads the court to conclude that the sudden focus on antisemitism was, at best arbitrary and, at worst, pretextual,” Judge Burroughs wrote.
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Harvard is represented by William A. Burck of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, Robert K. Hur of King & Spalding LLP, Steven P. Lehotsky, Scott A. Keller, Jonathan F. Cohn, Mary Elizabeth Miller, Shannon G. Denmark, Katherine C. Yarger, Joshua P. Morrow, Danielle K. Goldstein and Jacob B. Richards of Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP and Joshua S. Levy, Mark Barnes, John P. Bueker, Elena W. Davis, Douglas Hallward-Driemeier and Stephen D. Sencer of Ropes & Gray LLP.
Read BREAKING: Judge Backs Harvard in Suit Over Trump’s $2B Fund Freeze.