Appeals Court Weighs Trump's Bid to Kill $2 Billion in Harvard Research Funding

BOSTON — The Trump administration's fight with Harvard University reaches a federal appeals court on Monday morning, A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument at 9:30 a.m. ET, Reuters reported, on whether the government can revive its effort to terminate more than $2 billion in federal research grants to the nation's oldest and wealthiest university. The case has become the centerpiece of the administration's broader campaign to reshape American higher education — and the highest-stakes test yet of whether federal funding can be used as leverage to force change at private universities.

The question before the court is, on paper, about grant terminations. In practice, it's about power: can a president cut off billions in research money because a university refused his demands? The administration says the grants didn't align with its priorities. Harvard says the cuts are retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment — punishment, plain and simple, for saying no.

To understand how a funding dispute became a constitutional showdown, rewind to April 2025. Administration officials sent Harvard a list of 10 demands, including ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs and appointing third-party auditors to monitor academic departments for viewpoint diversity. Harvard President Alan Garber rejected them outright: "No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."

Within hours of Garber's statement, the administration said it was freezing federal grants to the university, citing Harvard's alleged failure to address harassment of Jewish students during campus protests related to the Israel-Hamas conflict. It ultimately terminated about $2.2 billion in grants. Harvard sued, calling the freeze retaliation — and so far, the university has been winning. It has secured several court victories in its battles with the administration, setting up Monday's hearing as the government's attempt to claw one back.

This is not Harvard's only front in the war. The administration has deployed civil rights investigations, deportations of non-citizen students, accreditation threats, and other tactics against elite and public universities the president has said are gripped by "radical left" ideologies — and on Tuesday, the same appeals court will separately review another ruling that barred the administration from preventing Harvard from hosting international students. Two hearings, two days, one message: the White House is not done, and neither is Harvard's legal team.

What's actually at stake in the grant money is worth spelling out, because "2.2 billion in grants" is the kind of number that goes numb. The terminated funding hit grants and contracts across the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Homeland Security, Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services. Among the casualties, according to the Boston Globe's reporting on Harvard's court filings: a multisite tuberculosis research program, a project building an advanced chip to measure NASA astronauts' radiation exposure during the upcoming Artemis II moon mission, research on Lou Gehrig's disease — and, per court filings, a DARPA-backed team that its own program director called the top performer on its program, working on what was described as a novel leap-ahead capability for the military. Harvard's lawyers have called the administration's approach "shoot first, aim never." The government counters that it has the authority to cancel grants after concluding the funding doesn't align with its priorities, including the president's executive order on combating antisemitism.

The case has already had its day in district court. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs heard more than two hours of oral argument in July, according to Harvard Magazine's account of the proceeding, probing the government's rationale while Harvard's lawyers painted the freeze as unconstitutional. "This is a blatant, unrepentant violation of the First Amendment," Harvard lawyer Steven Lehotsky told the court. The government sent a single Justice Department lawyer, Michael Velchik, who argued the executive branch gets to set its funding priorities. "It's not about Harvard's conduct," Lehotsky countered. "It's about the government's conduct toward Harvard."

What's striking, a year and a half into this fight, is how little middle ground remains. Harvard has treated every administration demand as an existential threat to academic independence — and framed its resistance in language designed to outlast any single presidency ("regardless of which party is in power"). The administration has treated Harvard's resistance as proof of the problem, escalating from funding freezes to student-visa threats to accreditation pressure. Both sides are now litigating not just $2 billion, but the terms of the relationship between the federal government and private universities for a generation.

Legal observers expect Monday's argument to turn on two questions: whether the grant terminations were driven by viewpoint retaliation, which would violate the First Amendment, and how much deference courts owe the executive branch in deciding which grants serve the public interest. The administration will lean hard on the second; Harvard will lean hard on the first. The panel's eventual ruling — likely weeks away — will almost certainly not be the last word. Whatever the 1st Circuit decides, this case has the Supreme Court written all over it.

For now, the research sits in limbo. Harvard asked the courts to reverse the terminations before a September deadline that would have made the cuts final and potentially irreversible; the litigation has kept the money frozen but the fight alive. Labs that lost funding have warned of damaged careers, closed labs, and researchers taking their work overseas. That's the quiet cost of a constitutional showdown: while the lawyers argue about the First Amendment, the tuberculosis research waits.

Monday's hearing starts at 9:30 a.m. ET. Harvard's lawyers will argue the government tried to control the "inner workings" of the university — the phrase Harvard lawyer Steven Lehotsky used for the government's approach — and must be stopped. The government's lawyers will argue the president gets to decide what the government pays for. Between those two positions is $2 billion, a few hundred research projects, and a question about who runs American universities that isn't going away anytime soon.

The administration's other funding fights keep coming — Medicare checks, marketplace refunds, tariff dividends — but Harvard is the one the White House picked as its example. Its broader campaign against institutions shows no sign of slowing. Win or lose on Monday, both sides have already decided this is the fight that defines the era. The 1st Circuit just gets to say who's right.