Harvard AAUP and National AAUP Sue Trump Administration to Block Unlawful Funding Cuts

The national AAUP and our Harvard chapter filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking to block the Trump administration from demanding that Harvard University restrict speech and restructure its core operations or else face the cancellation of $8.7 billion in federal funding for the university and its affiliated hospitals.

“The First Amendment does not permit government officials to use the power of their office to silence critics and suppress speech they don’t like,” says Andrew Manuel Crespo, Morris Wasserstein Professor of Law at Harvard University and general counsel of the AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter. “Harvard faculty have the constitutional right to speak, teach, and conduct research without fearing that the government will retaliate against their viewpoints by canceling grants.”

In March 2025, the chair of President Trump’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced on Fox News that “the academic system in this country has been hijacked by the left, has been hijacked by the Marxists. They have controlled the mindset of our young people . . . and we have to put an end to it.” He further stated, “We’re going to bankrupt these universities. We’re going to take away every single federal dollar.” On March 31, his task force announced a “comprehensive review” of more than $8.7 billion in federal contracts and grants at Harvard University and its affiliates.

Three days later, the task force issued a demand letter outlining “immediate next steps that we regard as necessary for Harvard University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.” The demands included new speech restrictions on campus, the cancellation of all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and a commitment to “full cooperation” with the Department of Homeland Security. Far beyond measures to combat antisemitism on campus, they seek to force the private university to transform its governance to comply with the administration’s agenda.

The AAUP's filing argues that the task force and its demands are part of a pretextual effort to to chill universities and their faculty from engaging in any speech, teaching, and research that President Trump disfavors. The professors filing the suit have asked for an immediate temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from cutting off any funding to Harvard University.

“No law in this country permits President Trump to suspend billions of dollars from universities like Penn, Princeton, or Harvard simply because he doesn’t like their policies on transgender athletes, their research on climate change, or the constitutionally protected speech of their students and faculty,” said Nikolas Bowie, Louis D. Brandeis of Law at Harvard University and the secretary-treasurer of the AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter. “Eliminating discrimination and protecting all students is important. But Trump is defying the Civil Rights Act, terrifying students, and illegally holding hostage grants for hospitals and scientific research so he can accomplish his real goal of punishing academics for our politics.” 

Read the complaint here.

Read the motion for a temporary restraining order here.