Harvard Funding Case Goes Before Appeals Court With Nearly 900 HBS Alumni in Its Corner

A federal appeals panel in Boston on Monday (October 5) heard the Trump administration’s bid to revive its termination of roughly $2.2 billion in research grants to Harvard University, a case that nearly 900 Harvard Business School alumni, among nearly 11,000 Harvard graduates, have urged the court to decide in the university’s favor.

Anurima Bhargava, lead counsel on the alumni brief and a former Justice Department civil rights official, watched the argument at the Moakley Federal Courthouse. Her verdict: “It was pretty dry.”

Former U.S. solicitors general Paul Clement and Elizabeth Prelogar argued for Harvard. Michael Velchik, who also argued the case in district court, represented the government before a three-judge panel that included Judges Sandra Lynch and Joshua Dunlap.

By Bhargava’s account, the government leaned on jurisdiction, arguing that challenges to the grant terminations belong in the Court of Federal Claims, which handles contract disputes but cannot order forward-looking relief. She reads that as a concession that the injunction against the funding freeze belongs in district court. Its defense on the merits, she says, amounted to a claim that it can terminate federal contracts for whatever reason it wants, and she did not hear the antisemitism rationale pressed at the end of the argument. Reuters reports that Velchik did argue the government may withhold funds to ensure Harvard is combating antisemitism.

THE PANEL’S QUESTIONS

Lynch signaled support for Harvard’s retaliation argument, Reuters reports, saying “there are no findings, there was no investigation, there was simply an announcement.” Bhargava’s sense of the judge’s demeanor was blunt. “She was like, ‘I’m tired of this bullshit,'” she says, a characterization of Lynch’s mood rather than a quote from the bench. Bhargava says Lynch also pressed the government on whether it believes Harvard has academic freedom, and that the government eventually allowed that it does in limited circumstances. Dunlap, she says, probed distinctions that might have helped the government but did not get there. A government claim that it had given Harvard adequate notice drew laughter in the courtroom, she says.

Judges also asked what happens if the government again cuts funding for some other reason, a standard question about the court’s continuing jurisdiction that Bhargava reads as impatience with a pattern of government action outside proper process.

“I think you’re going to get a decision pretty quickly,” Bhargava says. The government “can certainly take it to the Supreme Court,” she says, and Clement, in her telling, made a point she thinks matters if it does: that the justices have recognized even a brief loss of First Amendment freedoms as irreparable injury. “If you start chipping away at the First Amendment, that’s irreparable injury,” she says. “The idea that you’re trying to chill people from being able to stand up for their rights – I think that’s really important.”

THE CASE

The fight began in April 2025, when the administration sent Harvard a list of 10 demands, including ending diversity programs and appointing outside auditors to monitor academic departments for viewpoint diversity. After Harvard President Alan Garber rejected them, the government froze and ultimately terminated about $2.2 billion in grants, citing alleged failures to address harassment of Jewish students.

On Sept. 3, 2025, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled for Harvard, finding the terminations violated the First Amendment and Title VI procedures and calling antisemitism a “smokescreen” for an ideologically motivated assault on universities. Final judgment followed Oct. 20, and the government appealed Dec. 18. It has since restored most of the funding Harvard was owed.

The First Circuit hears Harvard’s separate international students case Tuesday (October 6) at 3 p.m. ET.

THE HBS CONTINGENT

Bhargava, a 1996 Harvard College graduate who led the Justice Department’s Educational Opportunities Section from 2010 to 2016, is lead counsel on the alumni brief, filed July 22 on behalf of 10,982 Harvard graduates from the classes of 1950 to 2026. The brief discloses that the advocacy group Stand for Campus Freedom paid for her pro hac vice application. A P&Q review of the filed appendix finds nearly 900 signatories holding an M.B.A., D.B.A. or HBS Executive Education credential, about 8 percent of the total, spanning classes from 1956 to 2025. The 1980s are the largest group, with 213 signatories. Only Harvard College (about 66 percent) and Harvard Law (about 9 percent) account for more.

HBS alumni, Bhargava says in an earlier interview, have particular stakes. “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,” she says, adding that HBS is “a breeding ground for people in power, globally.”

The appendix also includes comedian Conan O’Brien, A.B. ’85; novelist Margaret Atwood, A.M. ’62; Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, A.B. ’92; U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, A.B. ’67; former Gov. William Weld, A.B. ’66; late feminist icon Gloria Steinem (honorary degree ’22); former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, J.D. ’09; and, from the HBS ranks, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, A.B. ’01, M.B.A. ’11.

The total is down from the 12,041 who signed a similar brief in district court in June 2025. Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Tim Kaine and Rep. Jamie Raskin signed last year’s brief but not this one, according to the Harvard Crimson. Bhargava says organizers made no push this time to recruit members of Congress and declines to speculate on individual signatories.

DON’T MISS NEARLY 900 HBS ALUMNI AMONG RECORD 10,982 HARVARD GRADS BACKING UNIVERSITY IN TRUMP FUNDING FIGHT

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