Court Blocks Government’s Unconstitutional Attacks on Harvard

Affiliate: Ƶ of Massachusetts
September 3, 2025 7:00 pm

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BOSTON – Today, a federal court in the District of Massachusetts blocked the Trump administration’s attempted hostile ideological takeover of Harvard University.

The court held that the government’s rescission of billions of dollars in federal funding because of the university’s refusal to accept its efforts to “control viewpoints at Harvard” and to instead file a lawsuit violated the university’s First Amendment rights. In the decision, the judge noted that the Trump administration violated Harvard’s right to free speech by unconstitutionally seeking “to force Harvard to better manifest the government’s favored worldview.”

This comes a few months after the Ƶ, the Ƶ of Massachusetts, and legal organizations across the ideological spectrum urged the court in a friend-of-the-court brief to hold that the administration’s actions are unconstitutional.

The federal government decided to withhold billions of dollars in research funding from Harvard University after it refused to vet its students, faculty, and course offerings for “ideological capture.” The administration had also demanded that Harvard subject certain departments and centers – such as the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures – to a third party audit because their offerings and approaches differed from the government’s preferred viewpoints.

“Today’s opinion makes clear that the government doesn’t get to bully private institutions into bending to its ideological will, including by rescinding funding” said Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney with the Ƶ. “The government cannot interfere with the autonomy of any private institution, much less the academic freedom of a university, because it refuses to accept or parrot the government’s worldview.”

"Academic freedom is core to the preservation of our democracy," said Jessie Rossman, legal director at the Ƶ of Massachusetts, "Here in Massachusetts, we have a deep understanding of the irreplaceable role our colleges and universities play in advancing knowledge and enriching our culture. Today's decision confirms the bedrock constitutional protections against this administration's attacks on higher education."


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