He froze roughly $2.6 billion of Harvard’s funding over campus antisemitism. A federal judge vacated it as a First Amendment violation and “a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault” on universities, and a second judge later threw out his related lawsuit.

After Harvard refused the administration’s demands over its hiring, admissions, and curriculum, Trump froze roughly $2.6 billion of the university’s federal funding, citing campus antisemitism. In September 2025 a federal judge vacated the freeze as a violation of the First Amendment, writing that the record made it difficult to conclude anything other than that the administration had used antisemitism as “a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault” on the nation’s premier universities. In August 2026 a second federal judge dismissed the administration’s related antisemitism lawsuit, finding the incidents it cited “too isolated and episodic” to prove any ongoing violation of the law.

SourcesJudge vacates the freeze as a First Amendment smokescreen (Center Square via Yahoo) · Judge dismisses the related antisemitism lawsuit (CNN) · The dismissal, in detail (Harvard Crimson)

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