Harvard faculty sued the Trump administration on Friday after a federal assessment of school spending amid allegations of “failure” in protecting students from anti-Semitism, Hill reported.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and its campus chapters are both plaintiffs in the suit, saying that the failure was “unspecified” according to legal documents.
In the submission, they noted that Harvard University received policy requests from the administration in a letter outlining the steps to maintain $9 billion in federal funding.
“Harvard, like all American universities, relies on federal funds to conduct academic research. Such a threat is the university’s existential “gun to the head,” the lawsuit reads.
“They also hold billions of dollars of hostages in Congressional budgets, which are critical to ensuring that the American university system remains a global leader in science, medical and technical research,” it continues.
The move comes weeks after the Trump administration cut $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University in an anti-Semitism investigation on its New York campus.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon warned that the cuts to Harvard were similar.