Harvard University extended his lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday, hours after the government said it was ending about $ 450 million in research financing To the school.
The battle between the administration and the oldest university in the country has been intensifying since April 11, when the Harvard government sent a list of intrusive requirements In a accidentally emailed missive. After university refused to payThe government froze more than $ 2 billion in subsidies, which led the school to sue in the Federal Court in Boston.
But the lawsuit has done little to cows the federal government. Last Monday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon Harvard warned against even applying for federal subsidy money “Because none will be provided.”
In his changed lawsuit on Tuesday, Harvard said that the government was ‘doubled’ on its tactics when it had built up the ‘financing reductions, investigations and threats that will harm students from every state in the country and the whole world’. According to the university, at least half a dozen federal departments and agencies have sent notifications last week on subsidies that are terminated.
The letter from Mrs. McMahon, said the university, and other government actions left Harvard exposed to “widespread disturbance of its research activities, with Harvard – and that faculty, personnel and students whose salaries are supported by the frozen or terminated financing – not knowing when or if existing financing will be available or will be available in the future.
The new accusations of Harvard are building on the case that the university submitted on April 21, when she argued that the federal government had trampled on the first amendment and the Administrative procedure lawA law that regulates the actions of federal agencies.
The Trump Government has demanded that Harvard makes changes to admission and recruitment, topics subjects, delivering new reports to the government, immediately concluded with programs with regard to diversity, equity and inclusion and a study of “those programs and departments in assignments that feed the most anti -Semitic intimidation.”
Tuesday’s application suggests that Harvard is striving for two tracks while it is fighting.
In a letter to Mrs. McMahon on Monday, the President of Harvard, Alan M. Garber, used A respectful, measured tone. Dr. Garber wrote that the university and the administration had a ‘common ground’ and he described Harvard’s efforts to improve culture. In the same letter, however, he wrote that Harvard’s efforts’ were ‘undermined and threatened by the over -range of the federal government in the constitutional freedoms of private universities’.
Then came the application of Tuesday, which contributes to a fight that the university hopes that a federal judge will solve this summer. Harvard asks the court to block the government’s movements against its research financing, which means that the money flow is effectively restored.
Legal experts said that they believed that Harvard’s case was strong, although they added that the government could probably still find ways to close the financing.
Although Harvard is by far the richest university in the country, civil servants have warned that federal cutbacks can have devastating consequences for the campus and beyond. During the tax year of Harvard 2024, the federal government spent around $ 687 million on research projects at the university, an amount that was good for around 11 percent of the university income.
In her letter last week, Mrs. McMahon said that Harvard was “an institution funded by the government” – although a vast majority of Harvard’s income does not come from the government. She suggested that it relied more on his own money and noted that the donation of the university, with a value of more than $ 53 billion, would give it a ‘lead’. (However, much of the donation of Harvard is tied up in limited funds And civil servants say that the money cannot be reused as will.)
Before Harvard submitted his updated application on Tuesday, the Task Force of the Trump administration on anti -Semitism issued a statement that accused the university of not resolving the “in -depth racing discrimination and anti -Semitic intimidation” of which the government officials said they were the Campus “.
“There is a dark problem on Harvard campus, and by prioritizing reconciliation over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to support the taxpayer,” said the Task Force.
The university did not immediately comment on the statement, including the announcement that $ 450 million would be withheld.
Instead, Harvard has simply added more to his court case.
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