The Examiner #4 - “Universities are the enemy” J.D. Vance

President Trump’s administration announced it was cutting billions of dollars in grants to

Harvard University following a breakdown in discussions over antisemitism on campus.

In response, “the Ivy League institution pulled out the biggest weapon in the federal legal

arsenal: the First Amendment. “The Government’s attempt to coerce and control Harvard

disregards ... fundamental First Amendment principles,” Harvard’s lawsuit says.”

However, a more arcane issue is the focus of many of the lawsuit’s fifty-one pages: Harvard’s

claim Trump’s executive branch is not following federal rules for changing key government

policies. In particular, the Administrative Procedure Act “requires this Court to hold unlawful

and set aside any final agency action that is ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or

otherwise not in accordance with law,’” Harvard stated in its lawsuit.

A review of the timeline reveals, it was just hours after talks with Harvard fell apart that the

White House froze $2.2 billion fueling much of the school’s research, a very rapid response that mirrors the pace of sweeping changes consistent with previous issues from immigration and tariff policy to federal staffing. “No administration has done anything like this before precisely because there are procedures in place to restrain this kind of extreme thing,” David A. Super, a professor of administrative and constitutional law at Georgetown and Yale.

, known as APA, was passed in the wake of World War II, as

the government struggled to manage the major expansion of federal agencies under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“Congress passed the APA to guard against irrational, emotional, unfounded decision-making,” Super said. “Its purpose is not to push any particular agenda substantively but to make sure that the executive branch is following the law and considering the facts before it acts.”

President Trump’s administration, “issued a Freeze Order on research funding first (with no

process or opportunity for voluntary compliance) and used that freeze as leverage to negotiate,” Harvard’s attorneys wrote. “Such action is flatly unlawful and contrary to statutory authority.”

Indeed, the university learned the billions in federal funding would be frozen at the same time everyone else did – in the final 26 words of a one-page news release from the government’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, it says. The release was issued on the same day Harvard President Alan Garber announced the school would not agree to the administration’s demand letter.

Why should we be concerned?

A group of universities—including Brown University, Princeton University, Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois—have

asked a federal judge in Massachusetts to immediately block the Trump administration from

moving forward with a policy change aimed at reducing government spending in support of

"indirect" research costs.

These projects include:

• the development of advanced nuclear and cybersecurity technologies,

• novel radioactive drugs to diagnose and treat cancer,

• and upgrades for electrical grids in rural communities, to list just a few.

The lawsuit also said universities would have to reduce staff and training programs.

The result of the administrations “Freeze Order,” could potentially harm us, our families, our

neighbors and friends. The research that Universities play is “a vital role in driving scientific

discovery and innovation, with many institutions consistently producing groundbreaking

research across diverse fields.” Many universities boast a rich history of research excellence,

impacting areas like medicine, engineering, computer science, and more.

Why should we be concerned? These research efforts often lead to advancements that improve quality of life and contribute to a deeper understanding of the world.

Respectfully,

Engage Women

Resources:

The Hill