A federal judge gave Harvard University a win in its legal battle against the Trump administration, ruling with the Ivy League school in its attempt to restore nearly $3 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston on Sept. 3 rejected the administration’s argument that it was targeting the university funds due to allegations of antisemitism on Harvard’s campus.

The judge wrote in her 84-page ruling that it was "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."

The decision is a major victory for Harvard, the only university to take the White House to court. The Trump administration has argued its legal fights with several universities are over campus antisemitism, but Harvard sees a bigger battle regarding its overall academic freedom and federal spending.

"We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other," Burroughs said. "Harvard is currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be."

The judge also added: "Now it is the job of the courts to similarly step up, to act to safeguard academic freedom and freedom of speech as required by the Constitution, and to ensure that important research is not improperly subjected to arbitrary and procedurally infirm grant terminations, even if doing so risks the wrath of a government committed to its agenda no matter the cost."

On July 21, the day of the hearing between Harvard and the Trump administration, the president criticized the judge in a Truth Social post, calling Burroughs a "TOTAL DISASTER." Trump also said he would "IMMEDIATELY appeal, and WIN" if the ruling was not in his favor.

Hours after the Sept. 3 ruling, Harvard President Alan M. Garber said the judge's ruling affirms the school's "First Amendment and procedural rights, and validates our arguments in defense of the university’s academic freedom, critical scientific research, and the core principles of American higher education."

Garber also added Harvard would "continue to assess the implications of the opinion, monitor further legal developments, and be mindful of the changing landscape in which we seek to fulfill our mission."

But the White House condemned the ruling, telling USA TODAY that Trump was right in his social media post and that Burroughs, an Obama-appointed judge, was always going to rule in Harvard's favor.

"To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard University failed to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to plague their campus for years," White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in an emailed statement. "Harvard does not have a constitutional right to taxpayer dollars and remains ineligible for grants in the future.

"We will immediately move to appeal this egregious decision, and we are confident we will ultimately prevail in our efforts to hold Harvard accountable," Huston added.

Months of squabbling coming to an end?

The Trump administration has frozen or ended federal grants and contracts for the university worth nearly $3 billion. Harvard has repeatedly said that it "cannot absorb the entire cost" of the frozen grants, and that it was working with researchers to help them find alternative funding.

After refusing the Trump administration's demands, which included audits, establishing "merit-based" admissions and hiring policies, and shuttering the university's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, the administration announced it would cut off Harvard's federal funding.

Harvard sued the Trump administration in April over its decision to cut funds. The parties later agreed to enter settlement talks, as well as a court hearing.

During that hearing in July, the Trump administration said it had the authority to cancel grants and contracts because it felt Harvard had not done enough to combat, in their belief, unchecked campus antisemitism. They argued to Burroughs in July that granting federal research funds to institutions was not "charitable gratuities."

They also argued that "Harvard prioritized campus protesters over cancer research."

In her ruling, Burroughs said there was no investigation into whether any particular research labs "were engaging in antisemitic behavior, were employing Jews, were run by Jewish scientists, or were investigating issues or diseases particularly pertinent to Jews."

The judge further said that "the funding freezes could and likely will harm the very people Defendants professed to be protecting."

Burroughs also wrote that the Trump administration "failed to provide a reasoned explanation for how or why freezing and terminating funding would further the goal of ending antisemitism, to weigh theimportance of the grants they sought to terminate, and to consider decades of relianceengendered through their prior practice of funding research at Harvard."

The judge added in her ruling that even if Harvard could afford to absorb the loss of funding, the university "adequately established that their members will still experience concrete harm by virtue of the grant terminations."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Judge says Trump administration 'used antisemitism as a smokescreen' against Harvard

Reporting by Terry Collins, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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