Nearly 900 HBS Alumni Among Record 10,982 Harvard Grads Backing University In Trump Funding Fight

Nearly 900 Harvard Business School alumni are among the 10,982 Harvard graduates who filed an amicus brief today with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, backing the university in its year-long legal battle with the Trump administration over billions of dollars in federal research funding.

The case is President and Fellows of Harvard College v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The HBS contingent signing the brief – 881 signatories holding an MBA, a DBA, or an HBS Executive Education certificate, according to a ChatGPT analysis – makes up roughly 8% of the full roster, itself billed as the largest number of alumni from any single school ever to sign an appellate brief in American history, though down from the 12,041 who signed a similar brief in the case at the district court stage in June 2025.

Harvard College remains the largest bloc by far, at about two-thirds of signatories (7,257 of 10,982), whether as a signatory’s only Harvard degree or alongside a graduate degree. Harvard Law is next after HBS, with 991 JD holders, or about 9%.

THE HBS NUMBERS

The 881 HBS signatories span classes from 1956 to 2025:

Decade	HBS Signatories
1950s	4
1960s	40
1970s	97
1980s	213
1990s	195
2000s	173
2010s	95
2020s	50

The 1980s alone account for roughly a quarter of the total, consistent with that decade’s larger class sizes and the mid-career profile of alumni most likely to sign. Identifiable names include Seth Moulton, AB ’01, MBA ’11, the sitting congressman from Massachusetts’s 6th District; and Charles Duhigg, MBA ’03, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Power of Habit.

The appendix lists only name, degree and class year, so most of the 881 are private citizens. An HBS-specific count for the June 2025 brief isn’t available because that appendix was filed under seal.

THE BUSINESS SCHOOL’S STAKE

Anurima Bhargava, the brief’s lead counsel and a 1996 Harvard College graduate, says the business school’s own institutional values speak directly to what’s at stake.

“The business school’s mission, purpose and values is quite strong – particularly on things like open inquiry,” Bhargava tells Poets&Quants. “A lot of people think about this case as being about scientific and medical innovation and research. I do think for a lot of alums, it feels like what’s at stake is mission, purpose and values, and the business school is central to that.”

Bhargava graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1996 and earned her law degree at Columbia. From 2010 to 2016, she led the Educational Opportunities Section in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division – the same enforcement area the current administration’s actions against Harvard touch on directly.

The case, she says, is about institutional control more than dollars: “This is not about research funding. This is a case about using research funding as a way to take over the university.” HBS, she adds, has particular stakes in that fight: “The business school, perhaps more than any other business school in the country, is a breeding ground for people in power, globally.”

She also flagged a new filing this round from Leadership Now, a business-focused advocacy association, as relevant to a business-education readership.

For Bhargava, the story is generational as much as institutional. “You have people from the business school, the law school, the dental school, the extension school – it’s across the board, spanning every state and more than 100 countries,” she says. Pointing to a handful of signatories from the Harvard classes of the 1950s she adds: “There are people who said, ‘I thought my days of being in the fight were long over, but I’m back.'”

THE BROADER SIGNATORY LIST

Beyond HBS, the appendix includes many luminaries: comedian Conan O’Brien, AB ’85, who also signed the June 2025 brief; novelist Margaret Atwood, AM ’62; Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, AB ’92; Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, AB ’67; former Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld, AB ’66; feminist icon Gloria Steinem, who earned an honorary degree in 2022; and former Congressman and U.S. Special Envoy for Northern Ireland Joseph P. Kennedy III, JD ’09.

The June 2025 brief also drew a high-wattage roster of sitting officials, with the Harvard Crimson and CNN naming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (’71, JD ’74) and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine (JD ’83) as signatories alongside Blumenthal, O’Brien, Atwood, and Healey. Neither Schumer nor Kaine appears this year. Bhargava says organizers made no targeted push this year to recruit sitting members of Congress, unlike in 2025, and declines to speculate on individual signatories’ reasons for not returning: “We didn’t do as big of a huge outreach campaign as we did last year.”

THE UNDERLYING CASE

In April 2025, the Trump administration threatened to freeze roughly $2.2 billion in federal grants and contracts unless Harvard agreed to demands touching admissions, hiring, curriculum and campus governance – a response, the government claimed, to rampant campus antisemitism. Harvard sued, arguing the demands amounted to unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech.

In September 2025, Judge Allison D. Burroughs ruled for Harvard on summary judgment, finding the freeze and terminations violated the First Amendment and Title VI’s procedural requirements, vacating them and permanently enjoining similar future conditions. The government appealed that December; briefing, Bhargava notes, has since dragged on through repeated extensions. The appeal, No. 25-2230, is paired with a related case from the Harvard chapter of the AAUP, which Bhargava says she expects to be argued together for efficiency. Oral argument has not yet been scheduled; she estimates a hearing within the next couple of months and hopes for a ruling by fall, though she cautions the timeline is uncertain.

Even with Burroughs’ ruling in place, Bhargava says it’s unclear how much of the $2.2 billion is actually flowing again, or whether, once restored, the damage can be quickly undone, comparing the lingering uncertainty to aftershocks. “Even if the earthquake stopped, there’s some tremors that continue, and people aren’t sure if they’re on solid ground,” she says – adding it is uncertainty by design, meant to make institutions and researchers second-guess themselves regardless of the underlying legal merits.

WHAT THE BRIEF ARGUES

The amicus brief argues universities must be able to “educate students and invest in learning and research consistent with their missions and values, free from political interference,” and portrays the administration’s campaign as an attempt “to narrow our freedoms to learn, teach, think, and act.”

The brief discloses that Stand for Campus Freedom funded ancillary costs, including Bhargava’s pro hac vice fee, the charge courts impose to admit an out-of-state attorney to argue a case outside their home jurisdiction. She’s joined by fellow alumni counsel Naoka Carey, Pamela Coukos, and Marco Simons, with Lauren Godles Milgroom of Boston’s Equity Litigation Group as counsel of record. No alumni currently on the Harvard Corporation or Board of Overseers signed the brief – they’re recused as parties to the suit.

DON’T MISS ADMITTED TO HARVARD & STANFORD BUT NOT SURE THEY WANT TO COME BECAUSE OF TRUMP 

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