Harvard secured a major victory for itself and the higher education community this week when a judge ordered the Trump administration to release $2.2 billion in frozen funds to the nation’s oldest and richest university.
The win comes at a pivotal time as multiple other colleges are in talks with the Trump administration to strike deals to restore funding and end federal investigations against their institutions.
It is unclear if the judge’s decision will end Harvard’s own negotiations with Team Trump, but, if not, it will likely give the school the upper hand after the administration previously sought for the university to pay $500 million in a potential deal to both restore the funding and close down the federal probes.
“I think this really upends the negotiations that have been ongoing, and puts Harvard in a much more powerful position to get the things that they were looking for in those negotiations, and really puts the Trump administration back to the drawing board when it comes to coming up with methods or mechanisms for getting Harvard to operate more like the institution that they would like them to be,” said Beth Akers, a senior fellow focused on higher education at the American Enterprise Institute.
“So, I think it’s definitely going to be a hard reset on those negotiations with the Trump administration losing a lot of ground,” Akers added.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration’s funding freeze violates free speech protections and federal law.
“Defendants and the President are right to combat antisemitism and to use all lawful means to do so. Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did,” Burroughs wrote in her 84-page ruling.
“The record here, however, does not reflect that fighting antisemitism was Defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard and, even if it were, combatting antisemitism cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment,” she continued.
The Trump administration has not said if they will appeal the ruling, putting the timing of released funding up in the air as well.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
The president had previously been adamant about Harvard paying up, as a few other schools have done, to end federal actions against it.
“We want nothing less than $500 million from Harvard. Don’t negotiate, Linda,” Trump told Education Secretary Linda McMahon during a Cabinet meeting before the ruling, adding, “They’ve been very bad. Don’t negotiate.”
After the ruling, Harvard released a statement focused on the research funding that will come back to the university, the main justification they used for taking the Trump administration to court.
“The ruling affirms Harvard’s First Amendment and procedural rights, and validates our arguments in defense of the University’s academic freedom, critical scientific research, and the core principles of American higher education,” President Alan Garber said.
Higher education advocates have been watching on the sidelines hoping a legal victory would inspire other schools, particularly after Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University decided not to fight the Trump administration and struck deals that ranged from multi-million dollar payouts to changes in disciplinary and protest policies.
The University of California is among those currently in its own negotiations, with the Trump administration seeking a $1 billion settlement from the system.
“I do hope it inspires other institutions of higher education and in other sectors of the economy to understand that, in many of these situations, what the administration is doing is illegal and improper, and the more that the courts recognize that, and communicate that in their rulings, the more likely it is that people will find the courage to resist,” said Ray Brescia, a professor at Albany Law School.
But other institutions may not have the time and money for a prolonged fight, even if they wanted to wage one.
“These legal battles are not inexpensive, and so, it may be, depending on the amount of funding that the institutions are talking about losing, that it does make more sense for them to settle with the administration, but I would say it will likely have the effect of empowering institutions to challenge the administration’s assertions a bit more,” Akers said.
Others hope the lawsuit does not only affect other universities, but the White House as well.
“I would say that it would be prudent and wise” for the administration “to take heed of this opinion and to consider it when making future decisions,” said Vera Eidelman, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.
