00:00Lawyers for Harvard and Trump Square Off in Court in Boston
00:06In a packed federal courtroom on Monday, lawyers for Harvard University argued that the federal
00:14government's freeze of more than $2 billion in grants and contracts is illegal and should be
00:19reversed. Harvard's attorney said the federal funding cuts imposed by the Trump administration
00:24threatened vital research in medicine, science and technology. The school's lawsuit aims to
00:29block the Trump administration from withholding federal funding as leverage to gain control of
00:34academic decision-making at Harvard. The Trump administration has said it froze the funding
00:39because Harvard violated Title percent of the Civil Rights Act by failing to address anti-Semitism
00:45on campus. At the hearing in the U.S. District Court in Boston, Judge Allison D. Burroughs appeared to push
00:52back on that argument, asking the administration's lawyer about the relationship between cancer
00:56research and combating anti-Semitism. The only lawyer in court for the Trump administration,
01:03Michael Velchik, argued that the administration has the right to cancel government grants at any
01:07time if it decides that an institution doesn't align with its priorities, and said that combating
01:12anti-Semitism is an administrative priority. Velchik framed the issue as one about finances and told
01:18the judge that the government has the ability to simply give the research funding to another
01:22institution. Harvard wants billions of dollars. That's the only reason we are here. They want
01:27the government to write a check, Velchik said, who is himself a Harvard alum. The hearing concluded
01:33with Judge Burroughs saying she needed time to review the paperwork from both parties, and would then
01:38issue a decision, though it's unclear when that may come. After the hearing President Trump took to social
01:45media, saying, the Harvard case was just tried in Massachusetts before an Obama-appointed judge,
01:50she is a total disaster, which I say even before hearing her ruling. He went on to say he intended
01:56to end the practice of giving Harvard billions, and instead to give it to other colleges and
02:00universities. How did this Trump-hating judge get these cases, he wrote. When she rules against us,
02:06we will immediately appeal, and win. Whichever way Judge Burroughs decides, legal experts NPR talked with
02:13don't expect a full resolution anytime soon, given the likelihood that either side will appeal a ruling.
02:19Outside the courthouse, about a hundred Harvard alumni, students and supporters gathered for a
02:25What President Trump is doing is so clearly wrong, said James McCaffrey, a Harvard senior studying
02:35government. McCaffrey is a co-founder of Students for Freedom, a student group that pushes the university
02:41to continue standing up to the federal government. I'm from Oklahoma, a very red state. I'm a very proud
02:47American. I believe in freedom of speech. I believe in the American dream, he said. When you're starting
02:53to attack freedom of speech, that's anti-American. He said the administration's cuts to research
02:59funding at Harvard have ripple effects. There's research that echoes all the way back to Oklahoma
03:04and impacts, my home city of Oklahoma City in major ways. This research is important.
03:10Colleges and universities around the country are watching this case closely. Dozens of other
03:15institutions have also had millions in federal grants frozen. Across the higher ed landscape,
03:20across the entire sector, institutions recognize that what happens in this case will really have
03:25a profound impact, says Jody Fairise, a lawyer in Indiana, who specializes in higher education and
03:32represents colleges and universities. There is nothing different about Harvard University than there is
03:37about some Midwestern, smaller private college, Fairise says. Everyone is watching and worrying about the
03:44extent to which the federal government is seeking to control the higher education sector.
03:50Harvard's arguments. In court documents and at Monday's hearing, Harvard's lawyers made several
03:56arguments. The first is that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act, known as
04:02APIA, which says that federal agencies cannot abruptly change procedures without reason. They argue that there
04:07are procedures established by Congress for revoking federal funding based on discrimination concerns
04:14that the government did not follow. They argue the government didn't follow proper procedure when
04:20dealing with an alleged violation of federal civil rights law. This argument is a common complaint of
04:25groups suing the Trump administration, with more than 100 lawsuits citing alleged violations of the
04:30APIA, according to the non-profit Just Security, which tracks legal challenges to Trump administration
04:36actions. Harvard also argues that there is no connection between alleged anti-Semitism and shutting
04:42down federal medical and scientific research. The government has not, and cannot, identify any rational
04:49connection between anti-Semitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it
04:56has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security,
05:01and maintain America's position as a global leader in innovation, Harvard's complaint.
05:12The complaint also charges that the government is violating the First Amendment, which, it says,
05:18does not permit the government to interfere with private actors' speech to advance its own vision
05:23of ideological balance? Harvard claims the government is interfering with its academic freedom
05:29by telling the university how to hire, how to admit students and access student files without
05:34subpoenas. The Trump administration's arguments. The Trump administration accuses Harvard of failing
05:42to protect Jewish students after Harvard refused to comply with the list of demands. The joint task force
05:48to combat anti-Semitism, a multigency group within the administration that includes
05:53representatives of the justice, education, and health and human services departments, announced it was
05:59freezing funds. The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which
06:04enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families,
06:10is coming to an end, Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement when the cuts were
06:15announced. Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions
06:20required to access that privilege. The government argues that Harvard didn't follow federal law,
06:26including allegedly fostering anti-Semitism on campus and engaging in illegal discrimination
06:31through DEI efforts. As a result, the government argues, the university is not entitled to these
06:37research dollars. The Trump administration is looking at Harvard and saying, you failed to do things,
06:44explains Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. You failed to protect
06:49Jewish students, you failed to comply with the federal law, and as a result of those failures,
06:55we get to do something in return. We get to cut off the federal spigot of funding.
07:03And while Levinson and other legal experts NPR talk to say that federal power is there,
07:08the question for the court will be, did the Trump administration go about using that power in
07:13the right way? The research at stake. The more than $2 billion at stake in this case supports more
07:21than 900 research projects at Harvard and its affiliates. Those grants fund studies that include
07:26Alzheimer's prevention, cancer treatment, military research critical for national security, and the
07:32impact of school closures on mental health. Carrie Nadeau is a professor, physician and researcher at the
07:38Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, who studies ways of reducing the risk of near-fatal allergies
07:44in infants. When the government canceled her grant, she says she lost about $12 million dollars for the
07:50study. We've had to stop our studies, and our work, Nadeau says, and that has really had a huge ripple
07:56effect for everyone, not just us, but the people we serve, the teams we work with, the trainees that we
08:02trained, as well as many staff across the country. She's especially concerned with families,
08:08who signed up to participate in the clinical trial, which was supposed to last for seven years.
08:13When you take a therapy away from people, and especially in this case, children, and you put
08:18them at risk for a near-fatal disease like food allergy, that is a safety issue, she says, these
08:24families could be put into additional harm. The future of her project may come down to the outcome
08:29of this case, she says she's cautiously optimistic. Legal experts NPR talked with suggested that Harvard may
08:36have a strong case. Will Harvard win in Boston? There's a good chance of that, says Fair Eyes.
08:42But is that gonna settle the matter? That's probably not the case. It will go to an appeal,
08:47it will go to the Supreme Court. So a win, while it would be welcome to colleges,
08:52won't feel like the end of the story. Source, NPR.
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