US judge deems Trump’s cancellation of Harvard grants unlawful News
Rizka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
US judge deems Trump’s cancellation of Harvard grants unlawful

A US federal court ruled Wednesday that US President Donald Trump’s administration’s cancellation of $2.2 billion worth of grants intended for Harvard University was unlawful.

Harvard University has been targeted by a slew of executive actions from President Trump and his administration over the last six months, including funding freezes, investigations, and threats to the school’s tax-exempt status. The Trump administration has criticized the university over allegations of antisemitism and the presence of “radical left” ideologies.

This case concerned the Trump administration’s cancellation of hundreds of grants awarded to Harvard researchers on the basis that the university had not done enough to address the harassment of Jewish students on the university’s campus. Harvard sued the administration, stating that the cancellation of grants was a retaliatory measure to punish Harvard for not adhering to the administration’s academic guidance. Harvard said this guidance infringed on their free speech rights guaranteed under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

US District Judge Allison Burroughs of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts wrote the majority opinion on the issue. While Burroughs stated Harvard tolerated antisemitic behavior on campus for too long, she ultimately agreed with Harvard that the cancellation of the grants was unlawful. Burroughs emphasized:

And it is clear, even based solely on Harvard’s own admissions, that Harvard has been plagued by antisemitism in recent years and could (and should) have done a better job of dealing with the issue. That said, there is, in reality, little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism. 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.

Courts have also addressed other Trump actions against university students, with a recent lawsuit coming from Stanford’s student newspaper regarding deportations of pro-Palestine students threatened by the Trump administration.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.