法庭记录显示，国防部官员恳求上级不要削减哈佛大学“生物威胁”研究经费
【中美创新时报2025 年 6 月3 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）军事研究机构 DARPA 的一位官员称，这“对国家安全造成了严重且直接的损害”。《波士顿环球报》记者迈克·达米亚诺对此作了下述详细报道。
一名国防部官员恳求她的上级不要取消哈佛大学一项针对生物威胁的资助，因为这样做可能会“对国家安全造成严重和直接的损害”。
这位官员是美国国防高级研究计划局 (DARPA) 的一名局长，他表示，由该基金资助的哈佛大学研究团队在“生物威胁形势”项目中已经到达了“关键时刻”。
这些披露出现在哈佛大学周一就特朗普政府近30亿美元资金削减提起的诉讼的法庭文件中。哈佛大学辩称，这些大规模的资金削减是非法的，例如，已经停止了癌症和结核病医学研究的资金，并关闭了美国国家航空航天局（NASA）的研究项目。据哈佛大学律师称，作为诉讼的一部分，哈佛大学获得了大量政府记录，证明这些资金终止是随意且“武断的”。
在上个月的一轮资金削减中，国防部终止了对哈佛大学军事项目研究人员的资助和合同。
根据哈佛大学律师周一在波士顿联邦法院提交的一份备忘录，在五角大楼于 5 月 12 日通知哈佛大学裁员计划的第二天，国防部领导人向军方官员宣布了这一决定。
根据动议，DARPA 的合同主管随后“恳求”她的上级重新考虑。
这位主任（文件中未透露姓名）敦促其上级保留一笔与AMPHORA项目相关的拨款，该项目专注于应对新兴生物威胁。该项目涉及多个机构的研究团队。但哈佛大学文件中引用的一位主任表示，哈佛大学的团队“目前是AMPHORA项目中表现最好的团队”。
文件显示，该局长表示，该团队的项目已进入“关键时刻”，该项目“超越了最先进的水平，为部队提供了全新的跨越式能力”。
她继续说道：“对生物威胁形势的了解不足会对国家安全造成严重且直接的危害。”
根据哈佛大学提交的文件，国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯指示取消军事拨款。白宫发言人将问题转交给国防部，但国防部尚未回应置评请求。
这份于周一提交的备忘录是哈佛大学向美国地区法官艾莉森·D·伯勒斯（Allison D. Burroughs）提出的诉讼简易判决请求的一部分。哈佛大学律师辩称，该校需要法院在9月初之前撤销资金终止决定。根据备案文件，这是因为9月3日是提交文件的最后期限，这将使资金削减最终生效，并且可能无法撤销。
周一提交的文件显示了特朗普政府削减经费的广度。这些资金终止影响了美国农业部、能源部、国土安全部、国防部、退伍军人事务部和卫生与公众服务部的拨款和合同。政府记录显示，白宫向所有机构分发了一份模板，并指示它们使用该模板取消对哈佛大学的资助。
文件显示，特朗普政府削减了一项多地点结核病研究项目的资金、一项开发“一种旨在测量美国宇航局宇航员在即将到来的阿尔忒弥斯二号登月任务期间所受辐射的先进芯片”的项目，以及一项针对肌萎缩侧索硬化症的研究。
律师们将特朗普政府的做法描述为“先开枪，永不瞄准”，并表示终止 DARPA 拨款是该政府“轻率的报复性战略”的一部分。
哈佛大学的律师表示，白宫正在对哈佛大学进行惩罚，因为哈佛大学拒绝 遵守今年四月向哈佛大学领导层提出的一系列全面要求。
这些要求将使哈佛大学的招生和招聘实践以及某些学术部门受到联邦政府的监督。
特朗普政府指责哈佛大学未能保护犹太学生免受歧视和骚扰，在招聘和录取过程中歧视白人和男性，并培育了不容忍保守观点的校园文化。
“鉴于哈佛大学目前的情况，尤其是在这个领导团队的领导下，我们决定暂时停止与他们的业务往来。哈佛大学似乎无法理解或承认其校园内严重且令人担忧的民权问题，”特朗普政府反犹太主义工作组成员乔希·格鲁恩鲍姆上周告诉《波士顿环球报》。
格鲁鲍姆是美国总务管理局的高级官员，他签署了特朗普政府宣布削减哈佛大学资金的几封信函。
哈佛大学的律师在周一提交的文件中写道，特朗普政府向该大学提出了一个不可接受且非法的选择：“要么接受联邦政府对其观点、治理、学术项目、学生、教师和员工的控制，要么失去每一美元的联邦资助。”
许多法律专家，包括一些同情特朗普政府目标的保守派人士，都表示，该政府的哈佛竞选活动的一些内容似乎违反了联邦法律法规。
哈佛大学校长艾伦·加伯表示，他认同特朗普政府对哈佛的部分批评，包括认为学校需要更多意识形态的多样性。他还称哈佛的反犹太主义是一个“严重问题”。
但哈佛大学的律师辩称，特朗普政府忽视了“哈佛大学为解决反犹太主义和偏见问题已经采取并承诺采取的数十项措施”。哈佛大学已经改变了其执行校园抗议相关规则的方式，采用了特朗普政府支持的反犹太主义定义，并委托对校园反犹太主义和伊斯兰恐惧症进行了广泛的研究。
今年4月，加伯在接受《波士顿环球报》采访时，对特朗普政府的动机表示怀疑。“以反犹太主义的名义攻击我们的研究事业，确实让人怀疑其真正目的是什么，”他说。
题图：根据哈佛大学律师提交的法庭文件，国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯指示取消对哈佛大学的军事拨款。图片来源：Ore Huiying/摄影：Ore Huiying/Bloomb
附原英文报道：
Defense Department official pleaded with superiors not to cut Harvard grant on ‘biological threats,’ court records say
An official with DARPA, a military research agency, cited “grave and immediate harm to national security.”
By Mike Damiano Globe Staff,Updated June 2, 2025
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the cancellation of military grants to Harvard, according to a court filing by Harvard’s lawyers.Ore Huiying/Photographer: Ore Huiying/Bloomb
A Defense Department official pleaded with her superiors not to cancel a Harvard University grant focused on biological threats because doing so could pose “grave and immediate harm to national security.”
The official, a director at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, said a Harvard research team funded by the grant had reached a “pivotal juncture” in a project on the “biological threat landscape.”
Those revelations emerged in court filings Monday in Harvard’s lawsuit over the Trump administration’s nearly $3 billion in funding cuts. The sweeping cuts, which Harvard argues are illegal, have defunded medical research on cancer and tuberculosis, for example, and shuttered research programs for NASA. As part of the litigation, Harvard has obtained extensive government records showing the funding terminations were haphazard and “arbitrary,” according to the university’s lawyers.
In one round of funding cuts last month, the Department of Defense terminated grants and contracts with Harvard researchers working on military projects.
A day after the Pentagon informed Harvard of those cuts on May 12, Department of Defense leaders announced the decision to military officials, according to a memorandum filed by Harvard’s lawyers in federal court in Boston on Monday.
Then DARPA’s director of contracting “pleaded” with her superiors to reconsider, according to the motion.
The director, who is not named in the filing, urged her superiors to save a grant connected with the AMPHORA program focused on emerging biological threats. The program involved research teams at several institutions. But the Harvard group “is currently the top performing team on the AMPHORA program,” the director said in a message quoted in the Harvard filing.
The team had reached a “critical juncture” in a project that was “outpacing the state-of-the art and provides a novel leap-ahead capability to the force,” the director said, according to the filing.
“Inadequate knowledge of the biological threat landscape poses grave and immediate harm to national security,” she continued.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the cancellation of the military grants, according to the Harvard filing. A White House spokesperson referred questions to the Department of Defense, which did not respond to a request for comment.
The memo filed on Monday was part of Harvard’s request to US District Judge Allison D. Burroughs to issue a summary judgment in the lawsuit. Harvard needs the court to reverse the funding terminations by early September, its lawyers argued. That’s because of a Sept. 3 deadline to file paperwork that would make the funding cuts final and potentially irreversible, according to the filing.
The Monday filing showed the breadth of the Trump administration’s cuts. The funding terminations affected grants and contracts from the US Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Homeland Security, Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services. The White House circulated a template to all agencies and instructed them to use it to cancel Harvard funding, the government records show, according to the filing.
The Trump administration cut funding for a multisite tuberculosis research program, a project developing “an advanced chip designed to measure NASA astronauts’ radiation exposure during the upcoming Artemis II mission to the Moon,” and research on Lou Gehrig’s disease, according to the filing.
The lawyers described the Trump administration’s approach as “shoot first, aim never” and said the termination of the DARPA grant was part of the administration’s “thoughtless and retaliatory strategy.”
The White House, Harvard’s lawyers said, is punishing the school over its refusal to comply with a sweeping set of demands sent to Harvard leaders in April.
Those demands would have placed Harvard’s admissions and hiring practices, as well as certain academic divisions, under federal oversight.
The Trump administration has accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students from discrimination and harassment, discriminating against white people and men in its hiring and admissions, and cultivating a campus culture that is intolerant of conservative viewpoints.
“Given what’s happening at Harvard, especially under this leadership team, we are making the decision to get out of business with them for now. Harvard can’t seem to comprehend or acknowledge the severe and alarming civil rights issues on its campus,” Josh Gruenbaum, a member of the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force, told the Globe last week.
Gruenbaum, a top official at the US General Services Administration, signed several of the letters from the Trump administration announcing the Harvard funding cuts.
In their filing Monday, Harvard’s lawyers wrote that the Trump administration had presented the university with an unacceptable and illegal choice: “submit to federal control over its viewpoints, governance, academic programs, students, faculty, and staff or lose every dollar in federal funding.”
Many legal experts, including some conservatives who are sympathetic to the Trump administration’s goals, have said that elements of the administration’s Harvard campaign appear to violate federal laws and regulations.
Harvard president Alan Garber has said he agrees with some elements of the Trump administration’s critiques of Harvard, including that the school needs more ideological diversity. He has also called antisemitism at Harvard a “serious problem.”
But Harvard’s lawyers argued that the Trump administration is ignoring “the dozens of steps Harvard has taken and committed to take to address antisemitism and bias.” Harvard has changed the way it enforces rules related to campus protest, adopted a definition of antisemitism supported by the Trump administration, and commissioned extensive studies on campus antisemitism and Islamophobia.
In an interview with the Globe in April, Garber expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s motives. “Attacking our research enterprise in the name of attacking antisemitism really gives rise to skepticism about what the goal is here,” he said.
