President Trump, anticipating an unfavorable result in his administration’s battle to withhold billions of dollars in federal funds from Harvard University, is pledging to “immediately appeal” the ruling even before a decision has been formally announced.
The president shared his plan on Truth Social just hours after lawyers for the Ivy League university and the Department of Justice gathered in federal court on Monday to deliver opening arguments for the first of Harvard’s two lawsuits against the administration.
Mr. Trump’s lengthy social media post centered around concerns with the U.S. district judge presiding over the case, Allison Burroughs, who was appointed to the bench by President Obama in 2014 and has ruled in favor of Harvard in prior litigation.
“The Harvard case was just tried in Massachusetts before an Obama appointed Judge. She is a TOTAL DISASTER, which I say even before hearing her Ruling,” Mr. Trump shared on Monday afternoon. The president further accused Judge Burroughs of having “systematically taken over the various Harvard cases” and questioned “how did this Trump-hating judge get these cases?”
Judge Burroughs, who is tasked with overseeing both of Harvard’s lawsuits against the administration, notably upheld Harvard’s use of affirmative action in admissions decisions in a lawsuit brought against the Ivy League school by Students for Fair Admissions in 2019. In her ruling, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court, Judge Burroughs argued that while Harvard’s admissions practices were “not perfect,” they did not amount to discrimination against Asian American applicants.
Judge Burroughs handed Harvard a win again this June when she swiftly granted the university a preliminary injunction to bar the Trump administration from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students as the case proceeds in court.
Mr. Trump, stating not if, but “when” Judge Burroughs “rules against us, we will IMMEDIATELY appeal, and WIN,” adding that the government “will stop the practice of giving many Billions of Dollars to Harvard, much of which had been given without explanation.”
The president further defended his administration’s multi-pronged attack on the Boston-based Ivy by branding it “anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and anti-America.” The president continued: “It is a longtime commitment to Fairness in Funding Education, and the Trump Administration will not stop until there is VICTORY. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Mr. Trump’s comments come just hours after Judge Burroughs appeared to side with Harvard as the university sparred with the federal government over its decision to cut more than $2 billion in funding to Harvard over the school’s alleged antisemitism and support for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
The university’s legal team, which is seeking to convince Judge Burroughs to reinstate the funding, argued on Monday that the administration has no legal basis to withhold the contracts and grants and that the government’s moves were a “blatant, unrepentant violation of the First Amendment.”
An attorney for the administration contended the government had legitimate grounds to freeze Harvard’s funding, saying the school failed to address rampant antisemitism on campus. “If Harvard really cared about the importance of that research, they would address antisemitism,” the sole Department of Justice lawyer present, Michael Velchik, stated.
Mr. Velchik, a Harvard graduate himself, reiterated that federal agencies have the right to redirect funds from projects whose goals no longer align with the government’s priorities, adding that his alma mater “should have read the fine print.”
During the hearing, however, Judge Burroughs seemed to cast doubt on the government’s characterization of the case as a contract dispute and questioned the connection between antisemitism and cutting funding for unrelated projects, like cancer research.
At one point Judge Burroughs appeared to accuse the government of contradicting itself, stating that “In some ways you’re justifying the conduct of protecting Jews and upholding American values but on the other hand taking steps that are antithetical to those things.”
Judge Burroughs also questioned whether the government followed protocol in terminating the funds, arguing, “You can’t violate the Constitution to terminate a contract. There are limits to what you can terminate and why and how.”
The nearly three-hour hearing ended without Judge Burroughs issuing a formal order in court, though she said that she would produce an opinion as soon as possible. Harvard is hoping for a ruling before September 3, the deadline set by the federal government for the school to submit “paperwork that would finally close out grant funding,” the university’s legal team wrote in a court filing.
The president’s sharp words for Harvard via his Monday Truth Social tirade contrast with the friendly comments he’s shared in recent weeks as the two have reportedly negotiated to settle the dispute outside of the courtroom.
Just last month, Mr. Trump praised the university for having “acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations,” adding that it appears “to be committed to doing what is right.” In the same post, Mr. Trump stated that “we’ve been working closely with Harvard” and that “it is very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so.”
Although neither party has offered any update on the talks, the White House again signaled its preference for negotiating a deal ahead of Monday’s hearing. “We are confident that Harvard will eventually come around and support the president’s vision, and through good-faith conversations and negotiations, a good deal is more than possible,” a spokesman stated.
It’s not yet clear what such an agreement would look like, or what concessions would be made on either side. In April, the administration froze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard after the school refused to implement a list of broad reforms to quash antisemitism and anti-conservative bias on campus.
The following month, the Department of Homeland Security informed Harvard it was stripping the university of its student and exchange visitor program certification — which allows it to enroll some 7,000 international students — due to Harvard’s “failure to comply with simple reporting requirements,” for fostering an “unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students,” and for employing “racist” diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
Both measures pose serious challenges to Harvard’s status as a leading research institution and threaten to uproot the school’s day-to-day operations. The school responded by challenging both moves in federal court.
The school succeeded in temporarily blocking the government’s foreign student ban via a preliminary injunction. However, Harvard is still frozen out of the billions of dollars in revoked federal funding as that lawsuit continues through the courts.
A settlement agreement is likely to please some of Harvard’s top donors, who for weeks have been quietly urging the school’s president, Alan Garber, to restore its relationship with the federal government through dialogue, not the courts. Faculty and students, on the other hand, have pitched their support behind Mr. Garber’s resistance, hailing him as something of a folk hero on campus for standing up to the Trump administration.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
