After Court Restores Research Funding, Trump Still Has Paths to Target Harvard

Harvard won a milestone legal victory on Wednesday when a judge struck down the Trump administration’s freeze on $2.7 billion in federal funds — but government agencies still have options to keep federal dollars out of the University’s hands.

The White House vowed within hours of the ruling to file an appeal, and it may take weeks of court clashes — at least — before the fate of the frozen funds is decided. But legal experts said the administration could move separately to reduce the volume of new grants reaching Harvard through administrative or political channels, bypassing the courts entirely.

Most federal research grants, including those from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, are awarded competitively, with institutions from across the country — Ivy League and public alike — submitting proposals evaluated on merit.

That means grant reviewers have latitude to deprioritize Harvard in the process, not through formal policy but via informal discretion inside agencies. Because grant decisions involve subjective judgments, experts said such shifts are hard to detect and harder to contest, making them a likely path for the Trump administration to limit funding without incurring a legal fight.

Andrew F. Sellars, a law professor at Boston University, said federal agencies typically are not required to explain why a particular institution did not receive a grant, making it difficult to challenge or identify potential bias.

“It’s really hard in highly competitive grants to necessarily show that if Harvard was not picked that it was actually because Harvard was being disfavored,” he said. “Enforcing the idea that Harvard should be treated equally in these applications could be a real challenge.”

The Trump administration has already signaled a willingness to divert federal research funding away from Harvard. At a packed hearing in July, Department of Justice attorney Michael K. Velchik ’12 told Burroughs that the government had the authority to reallocate Harvard’s funding to other institutions more aligned with its priorities. He said the case was about “money” — not discrimination — and framed Harvard’s grants as discretionary.

And just hours after Burroughs issued her ruling, a White House spokesperson asserted that Harvard “remains ineligible for grants in the future” — a position first formalized in May directive from Education Secretary Linda E. McMahon, which barred the University from receiving new federal awards.

While Burroughs’ opinion prohibits the federal government from “refusing to award future grants, contracts, or other federal funding” to Harvard on unconstitutional grounds, it does not address informal efforts to sideline Harvard through discretionary or opaque grant decisions.

And those efforts, once difficult, may now be easier to carry out. An Aug. 7 executive order signed by President Donald Trump transferred authority over federal grant decisions to political appointees, instructing them not to “routinely defer” to career scientists or peer review panels.

The White House could also do exactly what Burroughs said it failed to do the first time to cut off future funding — follow the formal procedures under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Title VI authorizes agencies to cut funding if an institution is found to have discriminated, but only after giving notice of the alleged violation, conducting an investigation or hearing, and allowing the school a chance to respond.

In her Wednesday ruling, Burroughs faulted the government for skipping those steps and freezing Harvard’s grants without evidence or due process. Legal experts said that if the administration carried out a proper Title VI investigation, it could, at least in theory, lawfully withdraw Harvard’s funding.

“The administration could try again and go through those procedures,” said Thomas J. Healy, a law professor at Seton Hall University.

But Healy cautioned that Burroughs was likely to view the Department of Health and Human Services finding in June that Harvard violated Title VI, which was issued well after the funding cuts, as rushed and not the product of a full investigation — meaning the administration would need to build a stronger administrative record if it tried again.

“The problem is that the District Court has already concluded that the effort was essentially a sham to punish Harvard for its constitutionally protected expression,” he added.

Burroughs could respond by holding the administration or its lawyers in contempt of court if they continued to try to cut off grants in violation of her ruling.

But Stanley M. Brand — former general counsel for the House of Representatives — said such a ruling would likely carry little weight. Since Trump returned to office in January, judges in numerous cases have threatened to hold the White House in contempt, but federal officials have not rushed to comply with their orders, Brand said.

“As Madison said, the courts are the least dangerous branch — they have neither sword nor purse,” he said. “What they have is the strength of their judgments and the acceptability of those judgments.”

Trump has also tried to reduce research funding at the tap — proposing budget cuts at the NIH and other grantmaking agencies. That approach would not single out Harvard directly, but by shrinking the pool of available dollars, it could still significantly curtail the University’s share of federal support.

“There’s a world where Harvard gets its grants reinstated — insofar as they are Harvard grants — but grant money has generally been cut,” said Noah R. Feldman ’92, a Harvard Law School professor. “That will affect us more, just as a proportion, than it affects a lot of other universities, because we just have so many grants, because we have a lot of really good scientists.”

But moves from Trump to cut agency budgets have already faced resistance from congressional Republicans. The Trump administration tried to slash NIH funding in May, proposing a nearly $20 billion cut from the agency’s budget. But two days ago, House Republicans shot down the administration’s proposal, leaving NIH funding effectively unchanged.

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

—Staff writer Akshaya Ravi can be reached at akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @akshayaravi22.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.