Harvard seeks billions in funding restored at hearing in its standoff with Trump over antisemitism on campus

Harvard University appears in federal court in a pivotal case in its battle with the Trump administration, as the storied institution argues that the government illegally cut $2.6 billion in federal funding.

US 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 antisemitism.

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.

A lawyer for Harvard, Steven Lehotsky, says at the 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 says.

The case is before US District Judge Allison Burroughs, who has been 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 today’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, says the government has 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 antisemitism.