The Trump administration is appealing a court order that blocked it from freezing $2.2 billion in research funding to Harvard over allegations that the university was not doing enough to fight anti-Semitism, MarketScreener.com reports.
“Harvard has said it's taken enough steps, but does the government have to accept that?” Department of Justice lawyer, Michael Velchik, said in oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which is based in Boston, according to the publication. “At a certain point we also get to decide what’s good enough for us.”
Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch expressed skepticism about the government’s claims, noting that there were no investigation or findings, only an announcement that the grants were being terminated. “Against that backdrop, it rather looks like the administration didn't want to have to cope with what the law and facts that this case presented,” Lynch said, according to MarketScreener.
The appeal marks one of the latest in a series of wranglings the Ivy League school has had with the Trump administration and Congress in recent years over how it conducts its affairs.
In this case, Harvard is claiming that the Trump administration’s decision to freeze $2.2 billion in research funding was retaliation for rejecting a list of demands sent in April 2025 that the university cease its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and programs and make other changes.
The Trump administration froze the $2.2 billion in federal grants within a matter of hours after Harvard rebuffed the administration.
The case is part of a broader effort by the administration to reshape higher education through regulatory changes, investigations into university admission and hiring practices, and revamping the accreditation system.
The administration and Republican lawmakers in Congress have styled themselves as seeking to liberate American higher education from what it views as the ideological clutches of the left. Democrats have accused the administration of using antisemitism concerns – such as the ones raised in the Harvard case – as a pretext to get universities to fall in line with its conservative agenda.
As The EDU Ledger reported, a former DOJ attorney-turned–whistleblower told Congress in August that the administration’s investigations into U.S. colleges and universities had been decided before the investigators finished their work.
Jamaal Abdul-Alim is a longtime education writer who resides in Washington, D.C. He occasionally teaches journalism and has completed fellowships at the University of Michigan, Columbia University and New America.
