Harvard seeks to unfreeze $2.5 billion funding in court filing, says national security, public health research in peril
Harvard University, which is at the loggerheads with the US President Donald Trump's administration, has asked a federal judge to issue a summary judgement to unfreeze the $2.5 billion funding blocked by the federal government which the varsity said was an illegal decision.
The filing by Harvard University in the US District Court in Boston stated that since the university rejected a list of demands by the White House, the Trump administration had issued 957 orders since April 14 to freeze funding for research pertaining to national security threats, cancer and infectious diseases, Reuters reported.
President Trump has previously said that he is trying to force change at Harvard and other US colleges, specially the Ivy league, as he views that these educational institutes have been captured by leftist 'woke' thought and become bastions of antisemitism.
On the plea by Harvard University for summary judgements, US District Judge Allison Burroughs set arguments for July 21. The university had sued the Trump administration in April after a funding freeze was announced, as the school alleged the funding freeze violated its right to free speech and was arbitrary in nature.
In the filing, Harvard's lawyers wrote 'The directive to freeze and terminate every dollar of Harvard's research funds came directly from the White House, which dictated the form that such terminations would take and set arbitrary deadlines for particular terminations.'
Harvard University, in the recent filing, detailed that the funds terminated by federal government includes $88 million for pediatric HIV research, $12 million for increasing Defense Department awareness of emerging biological threats and $8 million to better understand dark energy. The university added that a funding cut would destroy the ongoing research in infectious disease, Parkinson's and cancer treatment.
Last month, in another setback to Harvard, the Trump administration revoked the university's ability to enroll international students which was blocked by a US judge after the varsity sued the government in a separate lawsuit.
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