Judge Rules Trump Unlawfully Canceled Harvard’s Funds
“In fact, a review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities..”
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs invalidated President Donald Trump’s freezing $2.2 billion in research grants for Harvard.
Short story: Burroughs said Trump’s administration used antisemitism to target Harvard.
“In fact, a review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities, and did so in a way that runs afoul of the APA, the First Amendment and Title VI,” wrote Burroughs. “Further, their actions have jeopardized decades of research and the welfare of all those who could stand to benefit from that research, as well as reflect a disregard for the rights protected by the Constitution and federal statutes.”
Trump froze the funding in April after Harvard refused to comply with a bunch of demands:
- Governance and leadership reforms
- Merit-based hiring reform
- Merit-based admissions reform
- International admissions reform
- Viewpoint diversity in admissions and hiring
- Reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism or other biases
- Discontinuation of DEI
- Student discipline reform and accountability
- Whistleblower reporting and protections
- Transparency and monitoring
Harvard quickly filed a lawsuit against the administration.
“Defendants’ actions threaten Harvard’s academic independence and place at risk critical lifesaving and pathbreaking research that occurs on its campus,” according to the lawsuit. “And they are part of a broader effort by the Government to punish Harvard for protecting its constitutional rights.”
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
yeah
this judge also ruled against the asian students who were obviously discriminated against for being academically superior
she threw in the first amendment line so that her people could,,gasp..arrrrgh!!! their way to self righteousness
Somebody who gets paid for such stuff ought to make a list of all the cases where some pissant judge told Trump he couldn’t do something; and whether the ruling was upheld, overturned, or still in progress. I want a scoreboard.
I’m willing to bet Harmeet Dhillon has such a scoreboard. We could try asking her to publish it.
Margot Cleveland keeps a running list of cases that have ended up at SC so far… https://x.com/ProfMJCleveland/status/1905987095736275406
This particular Judge has long list all on her own. Same Judge that ruled against challenges to Harvard’s discriminatory admissions policy. John Sexton at HotAir has a list of other instances by this same Judge.
Why even have a President or Congress, when judges think they run everything?
Defund all the universities.
The Harvard University endowment, was valued at $53.2 billion as of June 30, 2024. It is the largest academic endowment in the world according to
Harvard’s own investment management company.
Tell me again why the US taxpayer is required to fund their ‘academic independence’ and ‘pathbreaking research’??
Defund all the universities.
LB1901. Agreed. Trump is not operating from principle. He just wants Harvard to bend the knee. Going after Harvard like this, deserved or undeserved, clouds the issue, which is to defund all the universities. Why should taxpayers subsidize their research? Universities take a big cut off the top and the research, for the most part, is junk. Humanities and social sciences are a complete waste of time and the hard sciences, where much of the research cannot be replicated, are slowly catching up. Defund them all! Doing so will not mean the end of research. It will mean clowns like Liz Warren don’t get funded. The other side of the issue is that the universities are a cancer.
He is in the right when it comes to Government money. It’s not a right and absolutely if you want it you take the fooking knee to the hand that feeds you!
Obama judge, Need I say more,
Theoretically Jewish. Yet another embarrassment.
with a name like Borroughs. Doesn’t sound like she was in shul during 10/7, or evah
I’m sure a judge did. Next stop is SCOTUS to overrule, again. Can we just throw these asshats off the bench already?
That’d require the GOP to have enough votes and the balls to actually do it. They lack both.
Even if they had the votes, the testicular fortitude would elude them.
Another Ivy Leaguer. Unless these moneys were ear-marked in the appropriations bill, she is simply wrong.
Of course she’s wrong. One needn’t know anything about law to recognize that her arguments rely on a bunch of different, disparate justifications. That is always the sign of a weak argument.
Did not the Supreme Court just a couple months ago rule that these kinds of cases (challenges to federal funding stoppages) had to be brought to Court of Federal Claims and can no longer be heard by District Courts? IANAL, but I’m almost certain that happened.
The smokescreen is the judge’s tool as she goes full Orwell with her doublespeak.
“…their actions have jeopardized decades of research and the welfare of all those who could stand to benefit from that research…”
Not relevant. The withdrawal of funding is either lawful, or it is not. Whether or not, or how, it might cause harm is a policy consideration, not a legal consideration.
“Defendants’ actions threaten Harvard’s academic independence and place at risk critical lifesaving and pathbreaking research that occurs on its campus.”
Decoupling a university from government assistance arguably makes the institution more independent than it is when it relies on government funding. Staying attached to the government teat threatens its independence when the institution becomes too dependent upon that source of nourishment.
If the research being done at a university isn’t worthy of private or commercial support, maybe it’s research that’s not important or not promising. Why should government fund it?
Leftists define “independent” to mean “entirely dependent on government and so under its control”. That’s why “strong, independent women” are so dependent on the government.
These women like to be under the control of Uncle Sugar because they don’t have to sleep with US to keep the dependency fund flowing. If they depended on a husband they may have to put out once in a while.
Even NBA referees call a foul against LeBron every once in a while. One would expect these blue judges to understand that they are undermining all pretense at fairness.
But the parameters of the problem are entirely different.
There are two players, and 308 referees.
They’re playing to an audience who believe that they’re paragons of fairness. Rational people recognize that their bs.
Pish on her.
The Commissar Judges are on the top of their game.
Marxists must have speed dial Judges to see what every decision President Trump makes is OK by them.
Those won’t end until so,e Commissar Judge gets canned, and as long as they are doing what the Democrats want, stop President Trump, it will not end.
Huh, pocket veto and we have less than 30 days left in the fiscal year. Too bad for them, they’re not getting jacked
“Judge Allison Burroughs invalidated President Donald Trump’s freezing $2.2 billion in research grants for Harvard.”
So?
Perhaps she can pay the money from her own pocket. Sorry Bish, wallet is dry. No mo money for you.
Take the funds from her salary. I’m sure she won’t mind.
The judge is expressing a whole lot of feelings and precious little facts.
Obama judge, say no more!
Do….
If I understand the correctly you’re not ruling on wether or not Harvard has violated Fed law by discriminating against Jews and others (hint – it has and is) which is THE legal basis for denying it Fed money.
Instead you’re ruling that since Harvard is politically to the Left of Marx and Orange Man hates Marx by default Marxists are immune hence Harvard is immune to prosecution or defunding by an Orange Man administration?
By that twisted piece of “Logic” if (say) in the 60s AG Robert Kennedy disliked Italians it would imbue Italians and Hence the Mafia with immunity from any hostile actions of the Justice Department – despite whatever factual grounds existed for taking action to curtail the Mafia’s continued and proven law breaking.
But then according to THIS judge discriminating against Jews (and by extension also those uppity Asians) isn’t doing anything wrong either – just like in (say) Carlo Gambino’s eyes his actions were justified as well.
Another AWFL judge decision?
I lived through all the “feminist” movement, it disgusts me no end – so many used the movement for LEGIT cases and moved up. Others…….. rarely – just paper and most likely democrats.
Win the battle, lose the war. Even if the government ends up being forced to pay this round of grants, Harvard’s likely looking at a pretty empty pipeline
I asked Grok to grade Burroughs’ opinion as if she had turned that in an assignment for a 3rd year law student. Initially grok gave her an 81% (B-, which is pretty awful for law school, I would assume) but I told grok that the grading was mistaken in allowing her to make a BS argument about academic freedom being dependent on the federal funding so grok reevaluated the opinion and returned her a 78%. Pretty crappy.
Here is grok’s final assessment of the opinion:
Grok is still being overly generous, though … when I was in grad school a B was considered awful and a C was, essentially, failing.
LOL.
Hey Hah-vahd … guess what? There are other universities where the same research can be done. They can even hire away your vaunted researchers to do it if they wanted … the same way you spent so much time and money prying that hack of a moron Cornel West from Princeton – a guy who does nothing, creates nothing of value, has a low IQ, and has no business pretending that he is an academic. But you went o war with Princeton to steal him … so other universities can steal your researchers (if they’re so uniquely talented) with a little money and the simple lure of giving them a place to do that same research.
And, frankly, given the mountain of pure crap that comes out of Hah-vahd, I would say that net-net Hah-vahd has contributed to more pain and destruction and death than lifesaving. Jut Barky, by himself, was a juggernaut of pure destruction and chaos who cost America tens of TRILLIONS – and he got where he got only because Hah-vahd had to feel good about itself by promoting a certifying and promoting a complete moron who was inept, incompetent, and fueled by his hate of the West.
The only way Trump loses here is if he doesn’t appeal. Lets not forget we have a very large justice system not just “one judge says and his/her word goes”.
I haven’t got the time or patience to plow through this one to see if there’s any real justification behind it, but my first impression is that it’s garbage and will be overturned, eventually. Certainly the excerpt posted here reads like a lot of conclusory hand-waving. Which specific statutes has Trump violated?
I am beyond sick of these activist judges.