Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration claiming that its freezing of federal grants worth billions of dollars is unlawful, the BBC reports.
In a letter to the university community announcing the action, Harvard president, Alan M Garber, said the $2bn funding freeze would hamper critical disease research.
Harvard, the world’s richest university, last week rejected a list of demands that the Trump administration said was designed to curb diversity initiatives and fight anti-Semitism on the campus.
Garber, who is Jewish, acknowledged that Harvard’s campus has had issues with anti-Semitism but said he had established task forces aimed at the problem.
He warned: “The consequences of the government’s overreach will be severe and long-lasting.”
Studies on paediatric cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease would be affected, he wrote.
“In recent weeks, the federal government has launched a broad attack on the critical funding partnerships that make this invaluable research possible,” the school’s lawsuit said.
It said the withholding of federal funding violated Harvard’s constitutional rights and was being used as “leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking at Harvard”.
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