Harvard Says DOJ Lawsuit Rehashes Failed Funding Fight, Urges Judge to Transfer Case

Harvard argued in a Thursday filing that the Justice Department’s latest lawsuit largely repackages the Trump administration’s earlier, unsuccessful effort to strip the University of federal funding over allegations it mishandled campus antisemitism.

In a seven-page filing, Harvard’s lawyers urged the court to reject the government’s effort to link the suit to two prior antisemitism cases — and instead treat it as a continuation of the University’s 2025 case against the Trump administration in which a federal judge ruled that the administration had acted unlawfully in cutting Harvard’s funding.

“The Government now seeks a do-over,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote, arguing that federal officials are reviving “the same debunked assertions” that had already been tested in court.

A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The filing centers on a technical dispute over case assignment. The Justice Department has argued that its March 20 complaint is “related” to two private lawsuits filed in 2024, including one brought by Harvard Divinity School graduate Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum, which were heard by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns.

But Harvard countered that the government omitted what it described as the most relevant precedent: its earlier lawsuit against the Trump administration, which was decided in September by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs.

That case, Harvard argued, involved the same parties, similar factual allegations, and comparable requested relief — making it, in its view, the proper point of comparison.

If the court agrees with Harvard, the case would be transferred from Stearns to Burroughs, whose ruling in the University’s favor last fall restored grants to Harvard.

In that case, Burroughs rejected the claim that the University’s response to campus antisemitism was so slow-walked that it was sufficient grounds to terminate hundreds of grants, writing that the government’s purported reasoning was instead a “smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault.”

She pointed to a series of actions taken by the University to address antisemitism: convening a Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism And Anti-Israel Bias, revising protest and campus-use policies, incorporating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism into disciplinary frameworks, and expanding training for staff handling discrimination complaints.

Harvard’s Thursday filing leaned on that language, arguing that the DOJ’s new lawsuit advances a similar theory — and seeks a similar outcome — through a different procedural vehicle.

In the earlier case, the administration froze and terminated billions of dollars in federal grants while demanding sweeping changes to Harvard’s governance, hiring practices, and academic programming. Burroughs ultimately barred the government from withholding funds or imposing such conditions.

Now, Harvard argued, the Justice Department is attempting to achieve comparable ends through litigation.

The DOJ’s lawsuit, filed last week, seeks to terminate Harvard’s federal funding, recover past money, and impose a series of structural reforms — including new disciplinary policies, tighter protest controls, and cooperation with law enforcement. It also calls for the appointment of an independent monitor, approved by the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, to oversee Harvard’s compliance.

Harvard argued that those remedies would once again “reshape Harvard’s governance” and condition its access to federal funds on compliance with federal demands, echoing measures previously enjoined by Burroughs.

The University also pushed back on the DOJ’s effort to tie the case to the earlier private lawsuits, arguing that any similarities are limited.

Those cases, filed in 2024 and resolved last year, involved different plaintiffs and narrower claims, Harvard argued. The DOJ’s latest complaint relies in part on more recent developments, including a federal investigation into Harvard’s Title VI compliance, a June 2025 finding of a violation, and months of negotiations between the University and federal officials, according to the filing.

“The Government cannot render its Complaint related to the now-settled cases arising from prior alleged conduct by pretending that time stopped in January 2025 when those cases were resolved,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote.

The filing comes days after Stearns expressed skepticism about the government’s related-case designation, ordering the DOJ to explain the connection between its case and Kestenabum’s. In a four-page response filed Thursday, the government argued that the cases are “substantially similar,” though it did not mention the federal funding suit.

Legal experts who spoke to The Crimson said the Justice Department will face a steep burden in proving that Harvard violated Title VI, which requires showing that Harvard was “deliberately indifferent” to antisemitic harassment on its campus.

—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.