Government memo reveals research projects targeted in Harvard review

Boston Globe

04-04-2025

That contract is just one of many on the list for Boston Children's Hospital. In total, the hospital's contracts now under review are valued at more than $122 million. The list also includes $98 million of contracts with Harvard University itself, including the School of Public Health contract.
The memo was sent to Harvard's leaders on March 31 by the US General Services Administration, one of the agencies participating in the antisemitism task force.
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It put Harvard on notice that nearly $9 billion of funding would be placed under review.
The vast majority of the funding, $8.7 billion, was in the form of 'multi-year grant commitments,' but no other details were provided. By contrast, the memo provided a specific list of federal research contracts, and said the government was prepared to issue 'Stop Work Orders' for all of them.
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It also invoked a broad authority to cancel any contract 'for convenience.' Many federal contracts include clauses that grant the government broad discretion to cancel them.
The contract for tuberculosis funding with the Harvard School of Public Health supports labs across the country working on vaccine development, according to publicly available data on federal research contracts. Another contract with Boston Children's Hospital funds studies on whether the Covid vaccine reduces Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in children, according to publicly available records. There is also a contract with Boston Children's funding development for a vaccine to prevent opioid addiction.
One contract with Mass General Brigham worth $8 million, according to the memo, came from the US Special Operations Command, which hired the hospital to provide research and technical services related to traumatic brain injuries, according to publicly available records.
On Thursday, the Trump administration sent Harvard a list of demands detailing what the school's leaders must do to avoid cancellation of federal funding. The list included: shuttering diversity offices, implementing 'merit-based' admissions and hiring practices, cooperating with federal immigration authorities, and altering student disciplinary procedures.
The Trump administration contends those measures will help combat antisemitism and reduce what officials have described as illegal race-based discrimination.
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He also said: 'We fully embrace the important goal of combatting antisemitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry' and that Harvard would 'engage with members of the federal government's task force to combat antisemitism to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism.'
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The institutions targeted in the review include Harvard University itself and its affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutions, such as Mass General Brigham, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, and the Broad Institute, according to the list of contracts included in the memo.
The memo describes the $255 million as a 'ceiling value.' That may be a reference to the fact that some of the contracts have already been partially paid out and at least one has already been canceled in a separate round of federal research funding cuts, according to a Globe review of federal contract data.
The antisemitism task force says its goal is to investigate universities that have violated civil rights laws by allegedly failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment related to the campus protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.
At Columbia University last month, the task force used threats to federal funding to compel the school's leaders to accept a list of demands related to antisemitism and campus protest.
Some have questioned the legality of the task force's methods. Although the government may legally withhold federal funding for civil rights violations, there was no public process to adjudicate the the accusations against Columbia before the task force paused $400 million of funding for the school last month.
Tyler Coward, a lawyer with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, said the Trump administration's reliance on the convenience clause in federal contracts may be a way for the task force to bypass the formal process that would require the government to present evidence for its claims.
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Neena Hagen of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Mike Damiano can be reached at