The judge questioned the Trump administration’s motives in its attempts to combat anti-Semitism.
A federal judge has ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to freeze more than $2 billion of Harvard University’s funding, holding that the government violated the First Amendment through its efforts to combat anti-Semitism.
In a ruling on Sept. 3, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs cast doubt on the administration’s motives in freezing vast amounts of funding for things like medical research. She suggested that the government retaliated over the university’s refusal to comply with multiple demands the Justice Department made after an investigation into anti-Semitism on campus.
“The government-initiated onslaught against Harvard was much more about promoting a governmental orthodoxy in violation of the First Amendment than about anything else, including fighting antisemitism,” she said.
She added that “there is, in reality, little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism.” Reviewing the evidence, she said, indicated that the administration used anti-Semitism as a “smokescreen.”
Her decision removes the administration’s orders freezing vast amounts of federal money flowing to Harvard and prohibits it from issuing additional funding freezes.
White House spokesperson Liz Huston said the administration would appeal the ruling, which she said was egregious.
“To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard University failed to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to plague their campus for years. Harvard does not have a constitutional right to taxpayer dollars and remains ineligible for grants in the future,” she said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times.
In April, the administration made several demands that Burroughs said included changes to activities protected by the First Amendment. These protected rights include a school’s ability to manage its academic community and evaluate teaching without government interference.
Her ruling followed a hearing in July when the Justice Department argued that the government was well within its rights to terminate funding streams to Harvard. The university, the department also said, brought the case in a federal district court when it should have brought it in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which typically handles contract-related disputes.
By Sam Dorman
