Boston (Reuters)-A court decision ordered on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump’s government illegally surrounded about $ 2.2 billion in Harvard University subsidies and could no longer cut research funding for a prestigious Ivy League University.
The US district judgment decision Allison Burroughs in Boston has represented a great legal victory for Harvard, which seeks an agreement that can end the conflict on several fronts of the White House with the oldest and most rich university in the country.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard has become the central focus of the government’s wide campaign to use federal funding to force changes in US universities, which, according to Trump, are dominated by anti-Semitic and “radical left” ideologies.
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Among the first measures taken by the government against Harvard is the cancellation of hundreds of scholarships granted to researchers, with the argument that the university did not do enough to deal with harassment to Jewish students on its campus.
Harvard filed a lawsuit, arguing that the Trump government was violating its rights of freedom of expression and stirred in retaliation after the institution’s refusal to meet the requirements to give way to control over who hires and who teaches.
Appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, Burroughs said the Republican President was right to combat anti -Semitism and that Harvard was “wrong to tolerate hateful behaviors for so long.”
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But I pondered that the fight against anti -Semitism was not the true objective of the government and that the authorities wanted to push Harvard to meet their demands, violating their rights of freedom of expression provided for in the first amendment of the US Constitution.
Burroughs also pointed out that it is the function of the courts to safeguard academic freedom and “ensure that important research is not unduly subjected to arbitrary and procedural terminations, even if this is risky the wrath of a government committed to its agenda, it costs what it costs.”
The decision prevents the government from granting or freezing any additional federal financing to Harvard and prevents it from continuing to pay existing subsidies or refuses to grant new school financing in the future.
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In a statement, White House spokesman Liz Huston called Burroughs a “Obama-named judge” and said Harvard “has no constitutional right to taxpayers dollars and remains ineligible to receive subsidies in the future.”
“We will immediately appeal to this flagrant decision and we are confident that in the end we will prevail in our efforts to hold Harvard,” she said.
Harvard did not respond to requests for comments.
