Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 57

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard won a milestone legal victory on Wednesday when a judge struck down the Trump administration’s freeze on $2.7 billion in federal funds — but government agencies still have options to keep federal dollars out of the University’s hands. The White House vowed within hours of the ruling to file an appeal, and it may take weeks of court clashes — at least — before the fate of the frozen funds is decided. But legal experts said the administration could move separately to reduce the volume of new grants reaching Harvard through administrative or political channels, bypassing the courts entirely. Most federal research grants, including those from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, are awarded competitively, with institutions from across the country — Ivy League and public alike — submitting proposals evaluated on merit.

That means grant reviewers have latitude to deprioritize Harvard in the process, not through formal policy but via informal discretion inside agencies. Because grant decisions involve subjective judgments, experts said such shifts are hard to detect and harder to contest, making them a likely path for the Trump administration to limit funding without incurring a legal fight...

And just hours after [Judge] Burroughs issued her ruling, a White House spokesperson asserted that Harvard “remains ineligible for grants in the future” — a position first formalized in May directive from Education Secretary Linda E. McMahon, which barred the University from receiving new federal awards. While Burroughs’ opinion prohibits the federal government from “refusing to award future grants, contracts, or other federal funding” to Harvard on unconstitutional grounds, it does not address informal efforts to sideline Harvard through discretionary or opaque grant decisions. And those efforts, once difficult, may now be easier to carry out. An Aug. 7 executive order signed by President Donald Trump transferred authority over federal grant decisions to political appointees, instructing them not to “routinely defer” to career scientists or peer review panels...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/9/4/trump-options-federal-funding/.