Harvard’s Legal Bill Hits $210 Million as Fights With Trump Administration Continue

Harvard’s legal fees climbed to roughly $210 million in fiscal year 2026, a University spokesperson confirmed, up roughly 70 percent from the previous year as the University continues to face legal pressure from the Trump administration.

Harvard’s legal fees totaled $126 million in fiscal year 2025, a sharp 58 percent jump from the previous year. That marked a sharp departure from recent years, when Harvard’s legal expenses hovered around $20 million.

The University spent $19.5 million on legal fees in fiscal year 2023 and $20 million in fiscal year 2022. The totals, reported in Harvard’s Form 990 filings, includes program service, management and general, and fundraising expenses.

Ongoing and one-time legal fees accounted for about 21 percent of Harvard’s spending on purchased services in fiscal year 2026, which totaled just over $1 billion, according to the University’s annual financial report released Thursday.

The University posted an operating margin of just 1.5 percent this year, which Chief Financial Officer Ritu Kalra and Treasurer Timothy R. Barakett ’87 attributed in part to “elevated legal costs” in the report.

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 also called the University’s legal costs “mind-boggling” at a Sunday event, adding that the fees reflected “the price of defending yourself against all kinds of investigations, lawsuits, congressional investigations” from the current administration.

The University has been fighting the White House since spring 2025, when the Trump administration froze more than $2.7 billion in research funding after Harvard rejected its list of demands that the University change various policies and practices.

Harvard sued in response, including nearly a dozen federal agencies and their leaders as defendants. A federal judge struck down the funding cuts in September 2025 in a major legal win for Harvard, and most of the funding has since been restored.

But the Trump administration appealed the decision in December, and urged the First Circuit earlier this month to allow it to revoke the funding, arguing that the district court lacked the authority to order the government to restore the funds.

Harvard also sued the Department of Homeland Security in May 2025 after the agency moved to revoke the University’s ability to enroll international students under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. A judge quickly barred the administration from enforcing the revocation.

Amid the federal financial uncertainty and the major legal expenses, the University reported an operating loss of $113 million last year, its first since the pandemic.

Fiscal year 2025, which ended in June 2025, covered only the first months of Harvard’s dispute with the White House, and the administration has since opened more other legal battles.

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the University in February, seeking to force Harvard to provide admissions records as part of a federal civil rights review into whether Harvard is complying with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling striking down race-conscious admissions.

The DOJ sued Harvard again the following month, arguing the University failed to protect Jewish students from harassment on campus. The complaint seeks to recover federal funds Harvard received while allegedly violating federal civil rights law.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also sued Harvard last month in an attempt to obtain diversity-related employment records. A former employee sued Harvard last week, arguing he was fired in retaliation for taking time off to observe the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

—Staff writer Megan L. Blonigen can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at mblon.50. Follow her on X at @MeganBlonigen.