Harvard vs. Trump: Lawsuits, Rulings, and the Endowment Tax

The legal fight between Harvard and the Trump administration now spans at least four active lawsuits, a separate administrative debarment proceeding, and a new endowment tax. Harvard has won the opening rounds on research funding and international student visas; both are on appeal. The Justice Department has since filed two suits of its own, one over admissions data and one over antisemitism, and both are in early motion practice as of mid-2026. Here is where each Harvard vs. Trump lawsuit stands.

How the Fight Started

On January 29, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14188 directing federal agencies to review antisemitism complaints against universities.¹ A new Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism named Harvard at the top of a ten-university list and, on March 31, announced it was reviewing more than $8.7 billion in federal funding to the university and its affiliated hospitals.²

An April 11 letter set out the government’s conditions for continued funding: “merit-based” admissions and hiring with dean-signed certifications, full admissions and hiring data through at least 2028, annual third-party audits for “viewpoint diversity,” external ideological reviews of the education, divinity, public health, and medical schools, ideological screening of international applicants, reporting of international students who violated conduct rules to DHS, forensic audits of foreign funding, and plagiarism checks on existing faculty.³⁴

On April 14, 2025, Harvard President Alan M. Garber rejected the demands. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” he said. Within hours, the administration froze $2.2 billion in multi-year research grants and $60 million in contracts.⁵ Additional agency terminations followed over the next several weeks, ultimately reaching roughly $2.6 billion across more than 900 grants covering cancer research, Alzheimer’s, women’s health, opioid addiction, and climate science.⁶

The Research Funding Lawsuit

Harvard sued on April 21, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The case, President and Fellows of Harvard College v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:25-cv-11048), landed before Judge Allison D. Burroughs and named HHS, NIH, the Departments of Justice, Education, Energy, Defense, Agriculture, and Housing and Urban Development, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the General Services Administration, among others. Harvard’s claims: violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, First Amendment retaliation, and action exceeding the government’s authority under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.⁷

Judge Burroughs’ Ruling

On September 3, 2025, Judge Burroughs granted summary judgment largely in Harvard’s favor. She found that the administration had used antisemitism as a “smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault” on universities and that the government had never identified specific instances of antisemitism at Harvard or explained how the university’s internal reforms fell short of Title VI before cutting funding.⁸¹

On the First Amendment claims, the court held that Harvard’s April 14 rejection letter was a “substantial and motivating factor” behind the freeze and that the government had tried to impose unconstitutional content- and viewpoint-based conditions on federal funding.⁹ Burroughs cited public statements from President Trump calling Harvard a “Liberal mess” filled with “woke, Radical Left, idiots,” and a letter from Secretary of Education Linda McMahon disparaging the Harvard Corporation’s leadership as a “Democrat operative,” as evidence of political motivation. She also found that agency officials had continued to engage Harvard researchers and solicit work after issuing termination notices, undermining the government’s stated programmatic rationale.¹

On October 20, 2025, the court entered a final order vacating the freeze orders and termination letters and issuing a permanent injunction barring the government from withholding funding on the same allegations without complying with Title VI’s procedural requirements, including notice and a hearing.⁷ Most of the frozen funding was then restored to Harvard’s accounts, including a $46 million transfer of HHS grants.¹⁰

The Appeal

The government filed a notice of appeal in December 2025. Its April 27, 2026 opening brief before the First Circuit largely dropped the civil rights arguments made below and instead argued that federal grants are contracts and that the case belongs in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.¹¹ Harvard’s brief is due in July 2026, and no oral argument had been scheduled as of mid-2026.¹²

The International Student Visa Case

On May 22, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard’s certification under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, a move that would have ended its authority to sponsor F- and J-visas for roughly 7,000 international students and scholars.¹³ DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Harvard was “hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policies.”¹⁴

Harvard sued the following day. Judge Burroughs upheld a restraining order on May 29, and the administration then gave Harvard 30 days to show it met program requirements.¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶

On June 23, 2025, Burroughs issued a 44-page preliminary injunction blocking the government from revoking Harvard’s participation in the visa program. “This case is about core constitutional rights that must be safeguarded: freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of speech,” she wrote.¹⁵ The government appealed to the First Circuit, where higher education groups led by the American Council on Education filed an amicus brief supporting Harvard in January 2026.¹⁷

The DOJ Admissions Data Suit

On February 13, 2026, the Justice Department sued Harvard to compel it to turn over five years of individual-level admissions data covering the college, law school, and medical school. The department said it was investigating whether Harvard’s admissions process discriminated against white applicants and that the university had failed to produce documents requested during a probe begun in 2025.¹⁸

The suit followed a collapsed settlement track. Reports of a proposed $200 million settlement circulated; Trump then publicly demanded a criminal investigation and raised the proposed fine to $1 billion. The Department of Defense also severed its academic ties with Harvard on February 6, 2026.¹⁸

On June 3, 2026, Harvard moved to dismiss before Judge Myong J. Joun, arguing that DOJ and the Department of Education had bypassed Title VI’s mandatory enforcement procedures by failing to make a good-faith effort at voluntary compliance, failing to formally determine that voluntary compliance was impossible, and failing to notify Harvard of noncompliance before suing. The university called the records request “unnecessary and vastly overbroad” and the suit “politically motivated.” The motion was still pending as of early June 2026.¹⁹

The DOJ Antisemitism Suit

On March 20, 2026, DOJ filed a second lawsuit against Harvard, alleging the university violated Title VI through “deliberate indifference” to antisemitism by ignoring hostility on campus and refusing to enforce anti-harassment rules against students who targeted Jewish and Israeli peers. The government sought compliance and recovery of taxpayer funds, referencing more than $2.6 billion in active HHS grants.²⁰²¹

Leaders of Jewish student groups at Harvard publicly disputed DOJ’s characterization. More than 100 Jewish professors and staff signed a statement calling the suit a “weaponization of antisemitism,” and a separate group of 120 Harvard Jewish affiliates issued its own condemnation.²²

In April 2026, Harvard filed a motion arguing the new case was a “do-over” of the litigation Judge Burroughs had already decided and asked that it be transferred from Judge Richard Stearns to Burroughs under related-case rules.²³

The HHS Debarment Track

Alongside the courtroom fights, HHS has pursued an administrative route that could reach further than any single grant termination. On June 30, 2025, its Office for Civil Rights found Harvard in violation of Title VI, concluding the university showed “deliberate indifference” to a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students from October 2023 through June 2025. The agency cited inconsistent discipline, unclear reporting procedures, and uneven enforcement of time, place, and manner rules.²⁴

On September 29, 2025, HHS referred Harvard for administrative suspension and debarment. Unlike the grant terminations Judge Burroughs had struck down, debarment would have government-wide effect and could bar Harvard from doing business with any federal agency. HHS gave Harvard 20 days to request a formal hearing before an administrative law judge.²⁵ The Harvard Crimson reported the move appeared designed to circumvent the court order that had just forced reinstatement of the frozen research funding.²⁶

The Endowment Tax

The endowment tax is not itself a lawsuit, but it is part of the pressure Harvard is now under. On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which replaced the flat 1.4% tax on large university endowment investment income with a tiered structure reaching 8% for endowments exceeding $2 million per student, with an exemption for schools with fewer than 3,000 tuition-paying students.²⁷²⁸

Where Things Stand

Four cases and one administrative proceeding are live as of mid-2026. The appeal of Judge Burroughs’ research funding ruling is pending before the First Circuit, with Harvard’s brief due in July 2026.¹² The visa injunction appeal is also before the First Circuit.¹⁷ Harvard’s motion to dismiss the admissions data suit awaits Judge Joun.¹⁹ The March 2026 antisemitism suit is in its early stages, with Harvard arguing it should be treated as a continuation of the case it already won.²³ And the HHS suspension and debarment proceeding continues on a separate administrative track that, if carried through, could cut Harvard off from federal business across every agency regardless of what the courts decide.²⁶

1
Harvard University. Memorandum and Order
2
Harvard University. Harvard Wont Comply With Demands From Trump Administration
3
Harvard University. Letter Sent to Harvard
4
The Harvard Crimson. Trump Demands Analysis
5
CNN. Harvard Rejects Policy Changes
6
The New York Times. Harvard Funding Cuts
7
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. President and Fellows of Harvard College v US Department of Health and Human Services
8
First Amendment Encyclopedia. District Court Ruling Against Trump in Harvard Case
9
Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney. Federal Court Blocks Trump Administrations Freeze of Grants to Harvard University
10
The Harvard Crimson. Majority of Federal Funds Restored
11
Harvard Magazine. Government Wants to Move to Contract Claims Court
12
Georgetown Law Litigation Tracker. Harvard v Department of Health and Human Services (Appeal)
13
Harvard University. Supporting Our International Students and Scholars
14
BBC News. Harvard Visa Certification
15
Harvard University. Federal Judge Blocks Trump Plan to Ban International Students at Harvard
16
ABC News. Timeline of Trump Administrations Actions Against Harvard
17
American Council on Education. Higher Ed Groups Back Harvard in International Student Appeal
18
The New York Times. Harvard Lawsuit Admissions DOJ Trump
19
The Harvard Crimson. Harvard Files Motion to Dismiss Admissions Records Lawsuit
20
U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department Sues Harvard University for Antisemitism
21
The Washington Post. Justice Department Sues Harvard Over Jewish Students
22
Harvard University. Federal Lawsuits
23
Inside Higher Ed. Trump Lawsuit a Do-Over of Case Already Won, Harvard Says
24
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. HHS Finds Harvard in Violation
25
Reuters. Trump Administration Seeks to Make Harvard Ineligible for Federal Funding
26
The Harvard Crimson. HHS Suspension and Debarment
27
The Harvard Crimson. Senate Finance Committee Endowment Tax
28
Tax Policy Center. Congress Has Increased the Tax on College and University Endowments