Trump’s Funding Cut Sets the Stage for a Historic Legal Battle With Harvard

By revoking more than $2 billion in federal grants and contracts, the Trump administration has forced Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 to make a final choice — sue or stand down.

If Garber’s message to Harvard affiliates on Monday vowing to defend the University in the face of federal threats is any sign, a courtroom showdown between Massachusetts Hall and the White House may be imminent.

In a break from the rhetorical tug-of-war that has defined Harvard’s standoff with the Trump administration, Garber — for the first time — alleged that Trump’s campaign against Harvard was not just an example of government overreach, but outright unlawful.

He argued that the White House’s demands — which include ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, having regular federal reviews of academic programming, and derecognizing pro-Palestine campus groups — were in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and infringed on Harvard’s First Amendment rights.

Instead of delivering a response to the White House himself, Garber turned to two law firms with lawyers deeply embedded in Trump’s orbit: one, a former Trump appointee, and the other, an ethics advisor to the Trump Organization.

While Garber stopped short of announcing a lawsuit, his decision to invoke specific legal statutes — and respond through outside counsel — signals that Harvard is laying the groundwork for a legal challenge.

“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” he wrote in his message on Monday.

Harvard Law School professor Noah R. Feldman ’92 said that Garber’s message hinted that a courtroom battle with the White House is more likely than ever.

“His letter makes it clear that Harvard’s not going to comply with any unlawful demands,” he said. “From that, it follows that if the Trump administration acts unlawfully, the University will have no other recourse but to go to court.”

If Harvard were to take the Trump administration to court, it would become the first institution whose funding was cut to legally challenge the White House. While other universities have challenged the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy over changes to research funding policy, none have taken the Trump administration head-on over large-scale funding cuts.

When Columbia was stripped of $400 million in federal funding over the same concerns of campus antisemitism, it chose to quietly acquiesce within days to the Trump administration’s demands.

But Columbia’s funding remains suspended, and then-interim President Katrina A. Armstrong was ousted after facing intense backlash from students and faculty — a series of events that likely reinforced Harvard’s decision to not fold.

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers urged the University to use its $53.2 billion endowment to safeguard against immediate funding cuts and consider litigation against the White House.

“Given the extreme, oppressive, and extralegal character of the federal government’s demands, and Harvard’s strength as an institution and capacity morally, financially, and through litigation, the case for acting as President Garber did is overwhelming,” he said.

William D. Arazia, a professor at the Brooklyn Law School, said that if Harvard chose to sue the Trump administration, it would set both a legal precedent and strategic roadmap for other universities.

“If they win some kind of preliminary relief in court, then maybe other universities will jump on the bandwagon or maybe those universities will jump in right away, because Harvard’s leading the way, and they could follow behind in the parade,” he said.

Unlike other universities targeted by the Trump administration, Harvard is the only institution that received formal demands — and a window of time to respond — before any federal funding was revoked or threatened.

Peter H. Lake ’81, a higher education attorney and a professor at the Stetson School of Law, said that Garber’s firm stance prior to the funding cut could strengthen the case that the White House’s move was retaliatory.

“They put an interesting card on the table because by standing their ground before the funding was actually cut, they set the federal government up for a possible argument that it’s retaliatory,” he said. “I doubt that that was an accident either.”

He added that given Harvard’s status as the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university — and the high-profile nature of the White House’s campaign against the Ivy League — the case could be pushed toward the highest possible court.

“I am absolutely convinced that they would get the attention of the Supreme Court if they want to fight this,” Lake said.

Feldman warned that higher courts, like the Supreme Court, have not previously weighed in on a matter involving a unilateral decision to revoke federal funding for a university — and that a lawsuit could face unanticipated challenges.

“There are also very complicated legal questions that the Supreme Court has not yet answered about what legal procedures are necessary for a party who has had its funding unfairly cut to go through to get a court to properly order the restoration of that funding,” he said.

But Garber’s hardline in his Monday message — the fiercest rebuke yet by a Harvard administration against the White House — marked a decisive turn toward confrontation.

“If you decide you’re going to fight, you might as well go ahead and shout that from the mountaintops, because you’ve already committed to fighting,” Arazia said.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.