On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration’s freeze and termination of almost $2.2 billion in federal payments to Harvard University were unconstitutional and did not follow Title VI procedures.
U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs threw down the freeze orders and termination letters and put a permanent stop to agencies from putting similar conditions back in place or punishing Harvard for its remarks.
Burroughs wrote an 84-page ruling saying that the government acted out of anger after Harvard refused to accept “reforms” that went far beyond worries about antisemitism.
She said that the administration “specifically conditioned funding on agreeing to its ten terms, only one of which had to do with antisemitism,” while several others addressed things like who teaches, who is admitted, and what can be taught—classic academic-freedom territory.
The court said that the government’s “sudden focus on antisemitism was, at best, arbitrary and, at worst, pretextual.”
The court also said that the freeze orders from April 14 and May 5 constituted “final agency action” that may be reviewed under the Administrative Procedure Act.
This was because they clearly told the agency to suspend financing and because there were stop-work and termination notices that went out at the same time.
The freeze orders clearly mentioned “2.2 billion dollars” in multi-year donations from Harvard.
Burroughs also thought the freeze orders were random and unfair since agencies didn’t relate the policy to facts regarding antisemitism on campus, examine the costs of stopping active research, or think about the reliance interests that had built up over decades of federal-funded work.
The court said that the record indicated “essentially no information” about antisemitism at Harvard before the freezes.
Burroughs’ order permanently stops federal agencies from using the vacated freeze orders and termination letters, withholding funding to punish Harvard’s protected speech, and taking action based on discrimination without following Title VI.
All freezes and terminations that happen on or after April 14, 2025, are “vacated and set aside.”
Burroughs wrote in strong language near the end of the opinion that the record “makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault” on research universities—an approach that “runs afoul of the APA, the First Amendment, and Title VI.”
Case: The President and Fellows of Harvard College vs. the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, along with AAUP–Harvard Chapter vs. the U.S. Department of Justice.
Judge Allison D. Burroughs made the decision on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, in the District of Massachusetts.
What’s next? The government can ask the First Circuit to hear the case. A higher court can stay the injunction, but it stays in place.
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