A Massachusetts federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration’s decision to freeze $2.2 billion in research grants to Harvard University amounts to unlawful retaliation disguised as antisemitism enforcement.

The administration is expected to appeal, though the ruling hands Harvard a preliminary legal victory that may give the university the upper hand as it engages in negotiations to settle the multi-pronged crackdown from the Department of Education. 

In an 84-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs rejected the government’s claims that it withheld the funds because of the school’s failure to protect Jewish students on campus and struck down the freeze in its entirety. 

Judge Burroughs sided with Harvard’s argument that the government had unlawfully blocked the funding in retaliation for Harvard’s refusal to implement a list of reforms that violated the school’s free speech protections. 

“A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities, and did so in a way that runs afoul of the APA, the First Amendment and Title VI,” Judge Burroughs wrote. 

While Judge Burroughs acknowledged Harvard “could (and should) have done a better job of dealing” with campus antisemitism, she claimed that “there is, in reality, little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism.”

She continued: “We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other.” 

President Trump voiced his expectation of an unfavorable ruling months earlier, pledging in July to “immediately appeal” the decision well before Judge Burroughs had formally announced her findings. 

Mr. Trump has repeatedly taken aim at Judge Burroughs, who was appointed to the bench by President Obama in 2014 and has ruled in favor of Harvard in prior litigation. In one Truth Social tirade, Mr. Trump called her a “TOTAL DISASTER” and accused her of having “systematically taken over the various Harvard cases.” 

Judge Burroughs, who is tasked with overseeing both of Harvard’s lawsuits against the administration, notably upheld Harvard’s use of affirmative action in admissions decisions in a lawsuit brought against the Ivy League school by Students for Fair Admissions in 2019. In her ruling, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court, Judge Burroughs argued that while Harvard’s admissions practices were “not perfect,” they did not amount to discrimination against Asian American applicants. 

Judge Burroughs handed Harvard a win again this June when she swiftly granted the university a preliminary injunction to bar the Trump administration from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students as the case proceeds in court. That case also remains on appeal.