Overview
- Federal lawyers filed a 160-page brief asking the First Circuit to restore a roughly $2.7 billion freeze on Harvard research grants and said agencies can end awards when priorities change over antisemitism concerns.
- The appeal argues Harvard sued in the wrong forum and says the dispute over canceled grants belongs in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims rather than federal district court.
- The government contends Title VI, the civil-rights law that bars discrimination in federally funded programs, is not the only path to cut funding and that contract terms let agencies terminate support.
- In September, Judge Allison D. Burroughs blocked the freeze as unconstitutional and wrote that using antisemitism as a “smokescreen” did not justify halting projects like a tuberculosis research consortium and a tool to guide ER care for suicidal veterans.
- Separately, Harvard asked the Massachusetts court to move the administration’s recent antisemitism lawsuit to Judge Burroughs, calling it a do-over of the case where she ordered funding restored.