A federal judge on Friday allowed several prestigious universities to join Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over its federal funding.
At least 18 universities, including Brown, Princeton, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) have signed on to the request, which was approved by the court on Friday. Many of the schools face federal funding cuts of their own due to antisemitism and racial discrimination allegations.
“The federal funding terminations challenged in this lawsuit inflict grievous harm that extends well beyond Harvard University,” the court document reads. “The elimination of funding at Harvard negatively impacts the entire ecosystem. The cuts will disrupt ongoing research, ruin experiments and datasets, destroy the careers of aspiring scientists, and deter long-term investments at universities across the country, including amici.”
Brown, Princeton, Yale and UPenn did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Harvard filed the lawsuit in May after the Trump administration moved to cut nearly $3 billion in federal funding from the university. The administration has also moved to cut all remaining contracts with the Ivy League school and announced it is ineligible for any future grants.
Several of the school joining the amicus brief are currently enrolled in their own battle with the administration. UPenn came under fire in March over it infamously allowing a male to compete against women in a national competition as well as share facilities with the female athletes. Princeton faces a loss of approximately $210 million in temporarily suspended federal grants over antisemitism allegations.
In April, Harvard declared it “will not surrender” to the Trump administration’s demands to tackle antisemitism on campus by reshaping its vetting and admissions process for foreign students and reforming its disciplinary processes, among other requests. The university insisted it was taking its own steps to address the issue after its own internal investigation revealed that more than a quarter of Jewish students felt “physically unsafe” on campus and “Almost 60% of Jewish students reported experiencing ‘discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias.’”
In a separate lawsuit, Harvard is also challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) move to revoke the school’s ability to host foreign students. The order has been temporarily suspended by a federal court.
Columbia University, which accepted the administration’s demands after its federal funding came under threat for similar antisemitism accusations, did not join the suit.
Harvard and Columbia did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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