A three-judge federal appeals panel in Boston heard dueling arguments Monday over whether a lower court judge had the legal authority to force the Trump administration to restore more than $2.6 billion in research funding it cut from Harvard University. The hearing marks the latest turn in a fight that began when the administration tied the funding cuts to Harvard's handling of antisemitism on campus, a rationale the university has denied justified the cuts.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled in September 2025 that the funding cuts amounted to illegal retaliation after Harvard rejected the administration's demands for changes to its governance and policies, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Burroughs said Harvard's federally backed research had little connection to discrimination against Jews, and she restored more than $2.6 billion in research funding to the university. Her 84-page opinion, issued in September 2025, found the grant cutoffs violated the First Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act, and Title VI, according to Forbes, which reported that Burroughs described the government's antisemitism rationale as a “smokescreen” for an ideologically driven assault on higher education.
The dispute traces back to an April 2025 White House letter that outlined 10 mandatory conditions Harvard would have to meet to keep its federal research funds, including screening international students' political beliefs, appointing administrators aligned with the government's views, and surrendering internal antisemitism files, according to Courthouse News. Harvard argued the demands amounted to unconstitutional government leverage aimed at usurping university governance, and the Trump administration separately demanded sweeping changes related to campus protests, academics, and admissions while accusing the university of becoming a hotbed of liberalism and tolerating anti-Jewish harassment on campus, the Union-Tribune reported. The administration also sought to prevent Harvard from hosting foreign students and threatened to revoke the university's tax-exempt status.
Grants Funded NASA Research, ALS Studies, and Veteran Suicide Prevention
The $2.6 billion restored by the district court supported a wide range of ongoing scientific and medical work, including radiation-monitoring chips for NASA's Artemis II space mission, ALS research, tuberculosis consortium studies, and a Veterans Affairs predictive model designed to help emergency room doctors prevent veteran suicides, according to Law Commentary. Harvard had presented evidence showing the abrupt terminations jeopardized years of ongoing clinical and technological research, the outlet reported.
Government Says Dispute Belongs in a Different Court
At Monday's oral arguments, Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik argued that Judge Burroughs lacked the legal power to require the administration to pay Harvard, framing the funding fight as a contractual dispute that belongs in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims rather than district court, per the Union-Tribune. That specialized court, which traces its origins to the mid-1800s, handles lawsuits by citizens seeking money from the federal government. Velchik said the district court lacked jurisdiction to order specific performance and cited recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings to support his position, including a 2025 decision that permitted the federal government to terminate roughly $800 million in National Institutes of Health grants on similar jurisdictional grounds, as Courthouse News reported.
Attorney Paul Clement, representing Harvard, countered that the case raised broader issues of retaliation and discrimination rather than being a straightforward contractual dispute, telling the panel the district court's funding-restoration decision was the perfect remedy and that Harvard's claims did not really depend on the contract, according to the Union-Tribune. First Circuit Judge Joshua Dunlap, a Trump nominee, pressed Clement on whether Burroughs had effectively ordered payment and asked whether Harvard could pursue broader legal claims without a contract at all.
Judge Lynch Questions Lack of Formal Findings
First Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch, a Democratic nominee, expressed skepticism of the administration's claim that Harvard was indifferent to antisemitism, noting there were no findings or investigation before the termination announcement. Lynch highlighted that federal agencies terminated Harvard's grants abruptly without conducting a formal investigation or making administrative findings as required by Title VI procedures, according to Courthouse News. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires formal administrative hearing procedures before federal financial assistance can be revoked. Judge Gustavo Gelpi, also a Democratic nominee, rounded out the three-judge panel, which did not immediately rule on the case, per the Union-Tribune.
The same First Circuit panel simultaneously heard arguments Monday in a companion lawsuit brought by higher education labor unions, including the American Association of University Professors, challenging federal grant freezes on First Amendment and administrative law grounds, according to Courthouse News. Faculty unions argued that political conditioning of grant money undermines academic tenure and speech rights across public and private research institutions, broadening the fight beyond university administrators to organized academic labor.
One Fight Among Several Federal Actions Against Harvard
Monday's hearing lands amid a wider pattern of federal enforcement actions targeting Harvard in 2026, including a separate Justice Department lawsuit seeking undergraduate admissions records, an EEOC probe into tenure-track faculty hiring, and a Pentagon audit over foreign academic partnerships. Federal officials maintain they are enforcing civil rights and security compliance, while Harvard has characterized the suits as a coordinated campaign of administrative pressure.
The funding instability has already pushed researchers elsewhere. Canada recruited 64 researchers from top U.S. universities, including Harvard, MIT, and Yale, in 2026 through a $1.2 billion federal talent attraction initiative, with Canadian university leaders explicitly noting that U.S. funding volatility created recruitment opportunities for international labs. The stakes for Cambridge are significant given that Harvard employs 13,583 workers across 18 academic schools and central administration, making it the city's largest single employer according to the City of Cambridge Community Development Department.
Harvard's lawsuit, filed after it rejected the administration's governance demands, accuses the Trump administration of running a retaliation campaign against the university, the Union-Tribune reported. The Associated Press, through reporters Michael Casey and Sudhin Thanawala, first reported on Monday's oral arguments before the First Circuit panel, which left the case undecided as both sides await a ruling that could reshape how far district courts can go in reviewing federal funding disputes with universities nationwide.
