Trump Administration Asks First Circuit to Reinstate Harvard Funding Cuts

The Trump administration urged the First Circuit on Monday to let it revoke Harvard’s funding, arguing the district court lacked the authority to require the government to restore nearly $2.7 billion in research grants last fall.

Justice Department lawyer Michael K. Velchik ’12, arguing before a crowded courtroom, asked a skeptical three-judge First Circuit panel to toss out a September 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs requiring the Trump administration to restore Harvard’s funding.

Velchik framed the dispute between Harvard and the Trump administration as a contractual issue stemming from the termination letters issued widely to University researchers in May 2025 — a question that he said could only be decided by the Court of Federal Claims.

“When you look specifically at the grant terminations, there’s no First Amendment right to money,” Velchik told the panel on Monday.

“Harvard has a right to billions of dollars from the contracts. The source of those rights are the contracts, and to the extent that it wants relief in the form of payments from the federal government, that is the sort of relief that is exclusively committed to the court of federal claims,” he added.

Harvard, represented by former Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, stuck closely on Monday to its winning argument before the district court last July: that the Trump administration unlawfully revoked Harvard’s research funding to punish the University for protected speech.

Monday’s arguments were the latest front in a prolonged legal standoff between Harvard and the White House. The University was back before the same panel of the First Circuit on Tuesday to defend a district court ruling that blocked the White House’s effort to suspend Harvard’s ability to enroll international students.

The panel — Sandra L. Lynch, Gustavo A. Gelpi, Jr., and Joshua D. Dunlap — indicated on Monday it was unlikely to embrace the jurisdictional workaround proposed by Velchik, suggesting it would allow the government to skirt the procedural requirements of Title VI civil rights enforcement.

The jurisdictional line of argument was a shift by Velchik, who framed the government’s funding cuts as a legitimate response to campus antisemitism when he argued before the district court last fall.

That argument did not win over Burroughs, who issued a sweeping ruling that September ordering the government to resume all payments to Harvard. Burroughs concluded that the funding freeze was an unconstitutional attempt to retaliate against Harvard for rebuffing the government’s demanded reforms in April 2025.

A separate federal judge this August threw out a separate Justice Department lawsuit filed in March alleging that Harvard violated civil rights law by behaving with “deliberate indifference” in its response to campus antisemitism. The White House appealed the case later that month.

Harvard’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a faculty group, also argued its appeal on Monday, represented by former Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar. Though AAUP sued the Trump administration separately, its lawsuit was merged with Harvard’s.

On Monday, Velchik barely raised the issue of campus antisemitism, and he acknowledged that Harvard had legitimate First Amendment claims to object to government intrusions on academic freedom, particularly class offerings and curriculum.

Instead, Velchik argued that the case could be decided on jurisdiction without reaching the merits. Citing an opinion issued by Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in August 2025, he said the grant termination letters from which Harvard sought relief were not agency policy documents and thus could not be brought before the First Circuit.

“The Supreme Court drew a line,” Velchik said. “In NIH, Justice Barrett distinguished between challenges to policy documents, on the one hand, that may be heard in federal district court, and challenges to grant terminations, on the other hand, which must go to the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act.”

He urged the court to look at specific language within the grant terminations that allows the government to shut off money “for any policy reason.” He said the government could cut off Harvard’s funding for violations as mundane as its “use of lead paint or asbestos.”

The three judges appeared skeptical of Velchik’s argument. Lynch in particular, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, questioned the government’s attempt to sidestep Title VI.

“The claim is that Harvard has been indifferent to antisemitism, and there are no findings. There was no investigation,” Lynch told Velchik. “It rather looks like the administration didn’t want to have to cope with what the law and facts of this case presented under both Title VI and the Constitution.”

Clement also pushed back firmly against Velchik’s framing of the case. He argued that the remedy Harvard sought wasn’t a “refund” but a “prospective injunction” against the government withholding funds on retaliatory grounds. That relief could only be granted by a district court, not the Court of Federal Claims, Clement said.

During an exchange with Gelpi, Clement argued that the grant terminations were just one arm of a larger retaliatory campaign against Harvard, citing the May 2025 revocation of the University’s ability to enroll international students.

“These are not claims that really depend on the contract in any particular way,” Clement said. “They are claims to be free from retaliatory discrimination under the First Amendment.”

“The way I understand what happened here is the administration essentially said where are the various places that we touch Harvard, and let’s cut them off all at the various places they touch Harvard,” he added.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at hcc.35. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at elisespenner.82. Follow her on X @EliseSpenner.