Harvard Expands Lawsuit After Trump Administration Orders More Funding Cuts

The Ivy League school argues the administration's sweeping demands violate the free speech guarantees of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

BOSTON, May 13 (Reuters) - Harvard University expanded its lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s moves to cut off billions of dollars in federal funding to the Ivy League school on Tuesday after officials said they are terminating an additional $450 million in grants.

Harvard filed the amended complaint in federal court in Boston hours after a federal antisemitism task force announced that eight government agencies were canceling additional grants on top of the $2.2 billion in funding President Donald Trump’s administration had already terminated.

The task force, which includes representatives from agencies including the U.S. departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice, did so after accusing the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school of failing to confront “pervasive race discrimination and anti-Semitic harassment plaguing its campus.”

In response, Harvard expanded a lawsuit it first filed on April 22 after the administration froze the initial $2.2 billion to cover those latest research-grant terminations, which came from agencies including the U.S. departments of Defense and Energy as well as the National Science Foundation.

The revised complaint also now challenges a decision by the administration announced in a letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon last week to freeze billions of dollars in future research grants and other aid until the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college concedes to the administration’s demands.