ISLAMABAD - A U.S. federal judge in Boston ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze nearly $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard Research funds on Wednesday.
“All freezes and terminations of funding to Harvard made pursuant to the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters on or after April 14, 2025, are vacated and set aside,” U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs said in the order.
According to the 84-page order, Harvard has been “plagued by antisemitism,” but it should “have done a better job of dealing with the issues.”
The order stated that “there is, in reality, little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism.”
Earlier, in April 2025, the Trump administration froze nearly $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts to Harvard after the university refused to comply with the administration’s demands for an audit of “viewpoints of the student body” and “antisemitism” across the campus.
The federal government demanded that “by August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit those programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.”
If accepted, these demands would have maintained a continued financial relationship between the federal government and the institution.
According to Judge Burroughs, “In fact, a review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country’s premier universities, and did so in a way that runs afoul of the APA, the First Amendment, and Title VI.”
“In recent weeks, the federal government has threatened its partnerships with several universities, including Harvard, over accusations of antisemitism on our campuses,” said Harvard President Alan Garber in a community message on Harvard’s website.