哈佛大学就资金冻结起诉特朗普政府
【中美创新时报2025 年 4 月 22 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）哈佛大学周一起诉特朗普政府，称政府利用削减研究经费作为筹码，控制哈佛的学术事务以及招生、招聘和多元化实践，这是对联邦权力的违宪滥用。《波士顿环球报》迈克·达米亚诺和希拉里·伯恩斯对此作了下述报道。
在波士顿联邦法院提起的诉讼中，哈佛大学律师辩称，政府“试图胁迫和控制哈佛”的行为践踏了《第一修正案》对学术自由的保护。他们还认为，特朗普政府的行为违反了联邦法律法规，这些法规规定了联邦机构如何调查和惩罚被指控侵犯民权的机构。
哈佛大学校长艾伦·加伯在周一的一封公开信中表示，这些要求是试图“对大学实施前所未有的不当控制”。他写道，哈佛大学提起诉讼是为了“阻止资金冻结，因为这是非法的，超出了政府的权限”。
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，违反了民权法。政府对哈佛大学的施压是其对精英大学更广泛打击行动的一部分，并指责这些大学向学生灌输左翼意识形态，并纵容校园反犹太主义。
哈佛大学在诉讼中指出，过去一年来，该校为解决反犹太主义问题采取了一系列措施，并表示正在采取更多措施。
“作为一名犹太人和美国人，我非常清楚，人们对日益高涨的反犹太主义的担忧是合理的，”加伯在周一的信中写道。“要有效地解决这个问题，需要理解、决心和警惕。哈佛大学认真对待这项工作。”
哈佛大学在诉讼中写道，如果政府对大学执行民权法的情况感到担忧，那么应该遵循正常的法律程序提出质疑，而不是发布可能对科学、经济和学术自由造成严重后果的“武断和反复无常”的命令。
4月11日，特朗普政府的反犹太主义特别工作组向哈佛大学发出了一份要求清单，称如果不遵守，学校将失去联邦资金。这些要求要求哈佛大学削减多元化项目，将多个学术部门置于外部监督之下，并与联邦移民当局全面合作。
如果哈佛大学接受了这些要求，它就有义务交出所有招生和招聘数据，以便政府能够审查其是否存在基于种族或性别的偏好。
该大学还必须接受审计，评估其教职员工、学生、教职员工和领导层的“观点多样性”。之后，该大学将有义务在每个部门实施改革，以促进观点的多样性，但信中并未对此进行定义。观点多样性通常指意识形态和政治观点的融合。
上周一，哈佛大学拒绝了这些要求，工作组宣布将削减该校 20 多亿美元的资金，其中大部分用于从结核病到创伤性脑损伤等主题的生物医学研究。
“政府越权的后果将是严重且持久的，”加伯在周一的信中写道。“不加区分地削减医疗、科学和技术研究，会削弱国家拯救美国人生命、促进美国成功以及维护美国全球创新领先地位的能力。”
哈佛大学在诉讼中辩称，资金冻结以及4月11日提出的要求侵犯了其宪法权利。诉讼援引最高法院去年判决的一起案件称：“第一修正案不允许政府‘干涉私人行为者的言论，以推进其自身的意识形态平衡理念’。”
哈佛大学辩称，如果政府被允许切断哈佛大学的研究资金，该大学 “将无法就其教师聘用、学术项目、学生录取和其他核心学术事务做出决定，而不必担心这些决定会与政府审查机构对校园内可接受的意识形态或观点多样性水平的看法相冲突”，诉讼称。
资金冻结宣布后，许多法律专家表示，他们认为哈佛大学有充分的法律理由提起诉讼。
波士顿学院法学院宪法学教授肯特·格林菲尔德表示，尽管私立大学接受联邦政府的资助，但它们并不是受政府控制的政府实体。
“我们接受政府资助，但这并不意味着政府有宪法权力来告诉我们教什么、怎么教、雇谁、解雇谁、接纳谁进入我们的社区。大学拨款不附带这些条件——而且根据宪法，也不能附带这些条件，”格林菲尔德上周接受采访时表示。
哈佛法学院教授尼古拉斯·鲍伊表示，他认为政府没有强有力的法律依据来反驳哈佛的论点。但他预计政府可能会在技术或程序问题上进行反击。
他说：“无法预测特朗普政府会设置什么样的技术障碍。”
哈佛大学的诉讼将多位内阁级官员列为被告，包括卫生与公众服务部部长罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)、司法部长帕梅拉·J·邦迪 (Pamela J. Bondi)、教育部长琳达·M·麦克马洪 (Linda M. McMahon) 和总务管理局代理局长斯蒂芬·埃希基安 (Stephen Ehikian)。
这些机构都参与了特朗普政府的打击反犹太主义联合工作组，该工作组领导了针对哈佛大学的运动，并在上个月在哥伦比亚大学发起了类似的运动，包括削减资金和提出全面要求。
哥伦比亚大学同意了特别工作组的许多要求。哈佛大学则采取了不同的做法，上周拒绝了这些要求，并发布了两封由加伯和两名外部律师撰写的信函，许多法律观察人士认为这是起诉的威胁。
自去年年初以来，哈佛大学已采取多项措施，应对反犹太主义并控制亲巴勒斯坦抗议活动。一些人指责这些抗议活动加剧了犹太学生面临的敌对环境。哈佛大学收紧了与抗议活动和校园空间使用相关的政策，批评人士认为这是压制不受欢迎言论的一种方式。哈佛大学成立了一个特别工作组，以打击反犹太主义和反以色列偏见，并采用了特朗普政府青睐的反犹太主义定义，批评人士认为该定义可能被用来压制对以色列的批评。此外，哈佛大学还成立了一个特别工作组，以打击仇视伊斯兰教以及反巴勒斯坦和反阿拉伯偏见。
言论自由倡导组织个人权利与言论基金会的政府事务首席法律顾问泰勒·考沃德表示，政府在执行民权法时必须遵循适当的程序，包括向被告方提供针对他们的证据并赋予他们为自己辩护的权利。
他说：“特朗普政府试图绕过联邦民权法，通过金融胁迫来实施全面的意识形态指令，这是一个危险的先例。”
反犹太主义特别工作组没有立即回应置评请求。
上周，在哈佛大学拒绝了其要求后，特别工作组表示，学校的立场反映了“我国最负盛名的大学和学院普遍存在的令人不安的权利心态——即联邦投资并不附带维护民权法的责任”。
然而，在诉讼中 ，哈佛大学的律师辩称，所涉及的研究与特朗普政府的担忧完全无关。
诉讼称：“政府没有——也无法——确定反犹太主义担忧与其冻结的医学、科学、技术和其他研究之间的任何合理联系。”
华盛顿特区美国教育委员会主席泰德·米切尔周一表示：“我们赞赏哈佛大学采取这一举措，并期待法院发表明确无误的声明，谴责破坏学术和科学的行为。”
《波士顿环球报》的布鲁克·豪瑟对本报告做出了贡献。
题图：哈佛大学。David L. Ryan/《波士顿环球报》记者
附原英文报道：
Harvard sues Trump administration over funding freeze
By Mike Damiano and Hilary Burns Globe Staff,Updated April 21, 2025
Harvard University.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Monday, arguing the government’s use of research funding cuts as leverage to exert control over Harvard’s academic affairs, as well as its admissions, hiring, and diversity practices, represents an unconstitutional abuse of federal power.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Boston, the university’s lawyers contended the government’s “attempt to coerce and control Harvard” tramples First Amendment protections of academic freedom. They also argue the Trump administration’s actions violate federal laws and regulations dictating how federal agencies investigate and punish institutions accused of civil rights violations.
In an open letter Monday, Harvard president Alan Garber said the demands were an attempt to “impose unprecedented and improper control over the university.” Harvard is suing “to halt the funding freeze because it is unlawful and beyond the government’s authority,” he wrote.
The Trump administration has accused Harvard of violating civil rights law by allegedly failing to protect Jewish students from discrimination and harassment. Its pressure campaign against Harvard is part of the administration’s wider crackdown on elite universities, which it accuses of indoctrinating students into leftist ideology and tolerating campus antisemitism.
In its lawsuit, Harvard pointed to a number of steps it has taken to address antisemitism over the last year, and said it’s in the process of doing more.
“As a Jew and as an American, I know very well that there are valid concerns about rising antisemitism,” Garber wrote in his Monday letter. “To address it effectively requires understanding, intention, and vigilance. Harvard takes that work seriously.”
If the government has concerns about the university’s enforcement of civil rights laws, Harvard wrote in its lawsuit, it should follow the normal legal procedure for raising them rather than issue “arbitrary and capricious” orders that could have severe consequences for science and the economy, and for academic freedom.
On April 11, the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force sent Harvard a list of demands, saying the school would lose federal funding if it did not comply. The demands required Harvard to cut diversity programs, submit numerous academic divisions to external oversight, and offer its full cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
If Harvard had accepted the demands, it would have been obligated to turn over all data on admissions and hiring so the government could scrutinize it for any preferences on the basis of race or sex.
The university also would have to submit to an audit assessing the “viewpoint diversity” of its faculty, student body, staff, and leadership. Then it would have been obligated to implement reforms to boost diversity of viewpoints, which the letter did not define, in every division and department. Viewpoint diversity generally refers to a mix of ideological and political persuasions.
Last Monday, Harvard rejected the demands and the task force announced it would cut more than $2 billion in funding to the university, much of it for biomedical research on topics from tuberculosis to traumatic brain injuries.
“The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting,” Garber wrote in his Monday letter. “Indiscriminately slashing medical, scientific, and technological research undermines the nation’s ability to save American lives, foster American success, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation.”
In the lawsuit, Harvard argues the funding freeze, coupled with the demands sent on April 11, infringe on its constitutional rights. “The First Amendment does not permit the government to ‘interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance,’” the lawsuit says, citing a Supreme Court case decided last year.
If the government is allowed to cut off Harvard’s research funding, Harvard argues, the university “will be unable to make decisions regarding its faculty hiring, academic programs, student admissions, and other core academic matters without fear that those decisions will run afoul of government censors’ views on acceptable levels of ideological or viewpoint diversity on campus,” the lawsuit says.
After the funding freeze was announced, many legal experts said they believed Harvard had strong legal grounds to sue.
Although private universities receive federal funding, they are not government entities subject to government control, said Kent Greenfield, a constitutional law professor at Boston College Law School.
“The fact that we receive government money does not give the government the constitutional authority to tell us what to teach, how to teach, who to hire, who to fire, who to admit into our communities. Those university grants do not come with those strings attached — and cannot as a matter of constitutional law,” Greenfield said in an interview last week.
Nikolas Bowie, a professor at Harvard Law School, said he doesn’t believe the government has a strong legal defense to Harvard’s arguments. But he expects the government may push back on technical or procedural issues.
“It’s impossible to predict what kinds of technical obstacles the Trump administration could throw up,” he said.
Harvard’s lawsuit names numerous Cabinet-level officials as defendants, including Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi, Secretary of Education Linda M. McMahon, and Stephen Ehikian, acting administrator of the General Services Administration.
Each of those agencies is participating in the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, which has led the campaign targeting Harvard and a similar campaign involving funding cuts and sweeping demands at Columbia University last month.
Columbia granted many of the task force’s demands. Harvard took a different approach, rejecting the demands last week and issuing a pair of letters — from Garber and two outside lawyers — that many legal observers read as a threat to sue.
The university has taken a number of steps since early last year to address antisemitism and control pro-Palestinian protests, which some accused of contributing to a hostile environment for Jewish students. The university tightened policies related to protests and the use of campus spaces, which critics saw as a way to repress disfavored speech. Harvard launched a task force to combat antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias, and adopted a definition of antisemitism favored by the Trump administration that critics say can be used to suppress criticism of Israel. The university also launched a task force to combat Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab bias.
Tyler Coward, lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, said the government, in enforcing civil rights laws, has to follow the proper procedures, which include presenting accused parties with evidence against them and the right to defend themselves.
“The Trump administration’s attempt to bypass federal civil rights law and impose sweeping ideological mandates through financial coercion sets a dangerous precedent,“ he said.
The antisemitism task force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last week, after Harvard rejected its demands, the task force said the school’s position reflected “the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges — that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws.”
In the lawsuit, however, Harvard’s lawyers argued the research at stake is completely unrelated to the Trump administration’s concerns.
“The government has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen,” the lawsuit says.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C., said on Monday: “We applaud Harvard for taking this step and look forward to a clear and unambiguous statement by the court rebuking efforts to undermine scholarship and science.”
Brooke Hauser of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
