Attorney Alan Dershowitz said on Newsmax Monday that Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over frozen federal funding is a political maneuver with little legal merit and an outcome that’s all but certain.
Harvard University sued the Trump administration Monday evening and accused the government of using the threat of pulling federal funding to pressure the school into surrendering control over its academic decisions. During an appearance on “The Record with Greta Van Susteren,” Dershowitz said that Harvard University’s lawsuit is legally weak and politically calculated.
“Harvard’s gonna lose. It has no obligation, legally, the government, to fund a $53 billion university. I don’t understand the basis of the lawsuit,” Dershowitz said. “They’re claiming First Amendment, but Harvard has the First Amendment right to speak and to teach and academic freedom, but it doesn’t have the right to get funding.”
Dershowitz said the lawsuit isn’t really about constitutional rights but a pressure tactic.
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“I think the lawsuit is designed to send a message to the administration. Come sit down and negotiate,” Dershowitz said. “There are two lawyers who they hired initially are negotiators. They’re close to the Trump family and Trump business, and I think this is simply a ploy to try to get a resolution.”
Dershowitz estimated that roughly a third of the government’s demands of Harvard are reasonable, a third are flawed, and another third fall into a gray area that could be resolved through talks.
“About a third of the things that the government asked for from Harvard are right. They should do it. A third of them may be wrong, and about a third of them are subject to negotiation. So this case will settle. But if it goes to the Supreme Court, it’s gonna lose. It may win in the district court because it’s Massachusetts, but it will lose in the Supreme Court,” Dershowitz said.
The Trump administration began threatening to cut Harvard’s funding in April after ordering the university to comply with specific measures aimed at curbing antisemitism on campus. On April 11, the Department of Education demanded Harvard address antisemitism by reforming its disciplinary policies, screen international students for hostile views and review programs with a history of antisemitism.
After Harvard rejected the terms on April 14, refusing what it called a federal “takeover,” the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism moved to revoke $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts and criticized the university’s “entitlement mindset” toward federal funding. Additionally, senior officials at the Department of Health and Human Services told the Daily Caller that the Trump administration is halting over 500 National Institutes of Health grants to Harvard, totaling more than $1 billion.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Newsmax)
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