A federal judge in Boston ruled on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump's administration had unlawfully terminated more than $2 billion (€1.7 billion) in grants awarded to Harvard University and could no longer cut off the university's research funding.

US District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled in favor of the Ivy League school, deciding that the cuts were illegal retaliation for Harvard's rejection of the White House's demands for changes to its governance and policies.

The ruling is a significant victory for Harvard in its battle with the Trump administration, which has also sought to prevent the school from hosting foreign students and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.

The judge's order reinstates all of Harvard's federal funding that was frozen or cut since April 14. The order also prohibits the government from making future cuts that violate Harvard's constitutional rights or federal law.

It remains to be seen whether Harvard will actually receive the money. If the ruling stands, it will revive the university's extensive research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal funding.

What did the judge say in the Harvard ruling?

The Trump administration had tied the freezes at Harvard to delays in addressing antisemitism on campus. However, the judge said the federally funded research had little connection to antisemitism.

Burroughs said the evidence she had seen suggested that Trump "used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country's premier universities."
      
"It is clear, even based solely on Harvard's own admissions, that Harvard has been plagued by antisemitism in recent years and could (and should) have done a better job of dealing with the issue," she wrote. 

However, the judge stressed that there is "little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism."

Conflict between Trump and Harvard

Trump and his allies claim that Harvard and other prestigious universities are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and antisemitism. They make these claims particularly surrounding protests against Israel's war in Gaza.

Trump launched his campaign against the top universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of their curricula, staffing, student recruitment, and "viewpoint diversity."

The government has also targeted Harvard's ability to host international students, an important source of income, accounting for 27% of total enrollment in the 2024–25 academic year.

Although Harvard has begun funding some of its own research, the university has warned that it cannot absorb the full cost of federal cuts.

Edited by: Wesley Dockery