The institution emphasized the incoming class’s geographic diversity and first-generation student population.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images
The share of Black, Latino and international students in this year’s incoming Harvard University class declined from last year’s freshman class, The Washington Post reported.
Black students made up 12 percent of the Class of 2029, down two percentage points from the previous year; Latino students comprise 11 percent of this year’s incoming class, compared to 16 percent last year. International student enrollment is also down, from 18 percent of last fall’s freshman class to 15 percent this year. Only eight international students deferred their admissions, despite reports that many international students were unable to arrive in the U.S. in time for fall classes due to visa issues.
Harvard emphasized the incoming class’s geographic diversity, noting that students come from all 50 states and 92 countries. It also said 20 percent of the Class of 2029 are first-generation students.
The data comes at a time when the Trump administration is attacking colleges for allegedly violating the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action by continuing to consider race in admissions—although admissions officials argue this isn’t happening. The administration specifically targeted Harvard earlier this year, ordering the institution to “cease all preferences based on race, color, national origin, or proxies thereof” in favor of “merit-based admissions.”
Some colleges have stopped publicizing the racial makeup of their incoming classes this year, though it’s unclear if that’s related to the Trump administration’s scrutiny of admissions.
The HEPI / Kaplan Soft-Power Index looks at the number of very senior world leaders (monarchs, presidents and prime ministers) who studied at a higher level in another country.
Countries that have educated a significant proportion of the world’s most senior leaders are thought to benefit from a boost to their ‘soft power’.
The results for the leading two countries, the US and the UK, are broadly comparable to those for recent years but other countries, like France and Germany, fare worse than in past years while Russia and India have improved their position.
For the first time, the results are being published according to the institution that world leaders studied at. Harvard University and the University of Oxford lead the pack, with Sandhurst, the University of Cambridge, the LSE and the University of Manchester making up the rest of the top 6.
When launching the Soft Power Council in early 2025, the UK’s then Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon. David Lammy MP, said, ‘Soft power is fundamental to the UK’s impact and reputation around the world. I am often struck by the enormous love and respect which our music, sport, education and institutions generate on every continent.’ The HEPI / Kaplan Soft-Power Index offers one way to measure the extent of this soft power.
In 2025, the United States remains comfortably in first place, as their higher education institutions have educated 66 senior world leaders, which is only slightly lower than the US total for 2024 (68). The UK remains in a comfortable second place, having educated 59 world leaders. France performs less well than in the past but stays in third place, with 23 leaders.
The Index is based on a snapshot of world leaders for early August 2025. Changes since then are not reflected in the data. The Index should not be regarded as the only way to measure soft power and should be used alongside other sources of information.
Since the Soft-Power Index was launched in 2017, 81 (42%) of the countries in the world have had at least one very senior leader educated at a higher level in the UK. The Index is regularly quoted by UK Government Ministers – for example, last year’s results featured in this week’s Post-16 Education and Skills white paper.
World leaders educated in countries other than their own
For the first time this year, the results are also being published according to the institution that the leaders attended, with Harvard (15) and Oxford (12) topping the tree.
Harvard alone has educated more senior world leaders than all higher education institutions in Russia (13). Harvard has also educated more senior world leaders than Italy (5), Spain (5) and Germany (4) combined.
Key findings
The strong performance of the United States represents the country’s second best ever total (equal with 2022 but slightly down on 2024).
In terms of absolute score, the United Kingdom matches the best it has done since the Index began in 2017 (59), equalising the record that was also hit in 2019 and 2021.
France fares worse than in the past, with a big drop-off of 17 since 2019 from 40 to 23, but retains third place.
Russia posts its best performance, with 13 world leaders educated there, beating its previous high of 11 in 2022.
Australia (9, +2) remains in fifth place, while Switzerland is in sixth place (7, +1).
India scores its best ever performance. In 2022, only two serving very senior leaders had been educated to a higher level in India; in 2025, five had been – this is the same total as for Spain and also Italy.
Germany drops out of the top 10 for the first time, having educated just four serving world leaders, the same number as Canada, Germany, Morocco, the Netherlands and South Africa – and the same number as for the LSE alone.
The higher education institution that has educated the most current world leaders while they were international students is Harvard University (15), closely followed by the University of Oxford (13).
Five of the six best-performing institutions are situated in the UK, meaning world leaders educated in the UK tend to have been concentrated in a smaller number of institutions. While Harvard is the only US institution to have educated more than three serving world leaders, the UK has five institutions that have educated more than three: Oxford (13); Sandhurst (8); Manchester (6); Cambridge (5); and the LSE (4).
Institutions attended by very senior world leaders
Ranking
Higher education institution
Number of world leaders
1
Harvard
15
2
Oxford
12
3
Sandhurst
8
4
Manchester
6
5
Cambridge
5
6
LSE
4
7=
Boston
3
7=
Bristol
3
7=
George Washington
3
7=
New York
3
7=
Pennsylvania
3
7=
UCL
3
7=
US Army Command and Staff College
3
The 15 world leaders educated at Harvard are: i) the Prime Minister of Bhutan (Tshering Tobgay); ii) the President of Botswana (Duma Boko); iii) the Prime Minister of Canada (Mark Carney); iv) the King of Denmark (Frederik X); v) the President of Ecuador (Daniel Noboa); vi) the Prime Minister of Greece (Kyriakos Mitsotakis); vii) the Prime Minister of Israel (Benjamin Netanyahu); viii) the Prime Minister of Jordan (Jafar Hassan); ix) the Prime Minister of Lebanon (Nawaf Salam); x) the Prime Minister of Luxembourg (Luc Frieden); xi) the President of Moldova (Maia Sandu); xii) the Chief Minister of Sierra Leone (David Moinina Sengeh); xiii) the President of Singapore (Tharman Shanmugaratnam); xiv) the Prime Minister of Singapore (Lawrence Wong); and xv) the Prime Minister of South Korea (Kim Min-seok).
The 12 world leaders educated at the University of Oxford are: i) the King of Belgium (Philippe); ii) the King of Bhutan (Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck); iii) the Prime Minister of Canada (Mark Carney); iv) the President of East Timor (José Ramos-Horta); v) the Prime Minister of Hungary (Viktor Orbán); vi) the Emperor of Japan (Naruhito); vii) the King of Jordan (Abdullah II); viii) the President of Montenegro (Jakov Milatović); ix) the King of Norway (Harald V); x) the Sultan and Prime Minister of Oman (Haitham bin Tariq); xi) the President of the Philippines (Bongbong Marcos); and xii) the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands (Jeremiah Manele).
Nick Hillman OBE, the Director of HEPI, said:
International students bring enormous benefits to the UK. They all spend money while they are here and some then contribute to the UK labour market after studying. The diplomatic benefits are less well understood even though they can be equally important. In 2025, over a quarter of the countries around the world have a very senior leader educated in the UK, which amounts to tremendous soft power.
The current UK Government have established a Soft Power Council and promised a new education exports strategy. These are welcome, but they are counterbalanced by the incoming levy on international students, huge dollops of negative rhetoric and excessive visa costs.
Recent new obstacles standing in the way of people wanting to study in Australia, Canada and the United States provide an opportunity for the UK to steal a march on our main competitors. We are at risk of squandering this opportunity.
Linda Cowan, Managing Director of Kaplan International Pathways, said:
It is fantastic to see how many of our best known universities are educating foreign leaders. This year’s list also highlights the growing diversity and range of institutions contributing to the UK’s soft power, including Cranfield, Leicester, Liverpool and Westminster.
Another trend to watch is the expansion of transnational campuses of British universities abroad, such as in India and the UAE. These initiatives have the potential to further enhance the UK’s soft power by extending the reach of our higher education sector beyond students coming to the UK – a development to watch going forward.
Professor Irene Tracey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, said:
That so many world leaders have studied at Oxford speaks to the transformative power of education — to shape ideas, deepen understanding, and inspire service on the global stage.
Professor Duncan Ivison, the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester, said:
If soft power is fundamental to the UK’s impact and reputation around the world, then so too are the UK’s outstanding universities.
The HEPI / Kaplan Soft-Power Index makes clear just how important international students are to the UK’s global influence – both now and into the future. Extraordinary future leaders get their start at many of our universities and retain a deep affection for our country long after. And yet the Government is, at the same time, putting up obstacles to welcoming future international students to the UK with a proposed international levy, higher visa costs and reducing the graduate visa route.
We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to make the UK the global destination for the best and the brightest in the world given what is happening elsewhere – and especially in the US and Canada. Let’s not blow it.
The 59 leaders educated in the UK lead 55 countries (as a small number of places – Bahrain, Luxembourg, Namibia and the United Arab Emirates have two very senior leaders educated in the UK). Changes affecting the UK list for 2025 are outlined in the table below. They include:
The Rt Hon. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada since early 2025, studied Economics at the University of Oxford.
Taye Atske Selassie, the President of Ethiopia since late 2024, studied International Relations and Strategic Studies at Lancaster University.
The President, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, and Prime Minister, Elijah Ngurare, of Namibia, who have both been in post since early 2025, studied in the UK – the Namibian President studied at Glasgow Caledonian University as well as Keele University and the Prime Minister studied at University of Dundee.
The Prime Minister of Rwanda since July 2025, Justin Nsengiyumva, studied Economics at the University of Leicester.
The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka since autumn 2024, Harini Amarasuriya, studied Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh.
Click here to download a table showing all the countries with at least one senior leader educated in the UK for the whole period from 2017 to 2025.
The 66 world leaders from 58 countries educated in the United States head the following countries:
Bahrain (2); Bangladesh; Belgium; Belize; Bhutan (2); Botswana; Bulgaria; Cambodia; Canada; Costa Rica; Denmark; Dominica; Dominican Republic; East Timor; Ecuador; Egypt; Finland; Greece; Guinea-Bissau; Guyana; Haiti (2); Iceland (2); Ireland; Israel (2); Ivory Coast; Jordan (2); Kuwait; Latvia; Lebanon; Liberia; Luxembourg; Malawi; Malaysia; Marshall Islands; Micronesia; Moldova; Monaco; Montenegro; Namibia; Nigeria; Palau; Palestine; Panama; Paraguay; Philippines; Rwanda; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Sierra Leone (2); Singapore (2); Slovenia; Somalia; South Korea; Spain; Sudan; Switzerland; Togo; Tonga; and Vatican City.
Notes for Editors
1. Leaders are defined as heads of state and heads of government (monarchs, presidents and prime ministers). Countries often have more than one (such as a president or monarch and a prime minister).
2. Countries are included if they are members of, or observers at, the United Nations, currently numbering 195 places. Palestine is therefore included but Northern Cyprus, for example, is not.
3. The HEPI / Kaplan Soft-Power Index is a measure of tertiary education. This is defined broadly but distance learning and transnational education are excluded for the soft-power benefits are thought to be less.
4. Leaders change throughout the year, so we provide a snapshot for August 2025. For example, the fieldwork was undertaken prior to the recent change of leadership in Thailand.
5. Each country is treated equally and we do not claim each individual result provides good evidence of positive soft power. No one is excluded on moral grounds.
6. Some people are educated in more than one other country and they can therefore count towards the totals for more than one country.
7. While we use multiple sources to obtain information, the educational background of some national leaders is opaque. HEPI welcomes feedback that would enable us to build up a more complete picture.
8. When new information comes to light, we update the figures. So there are some slight differences in the figures provided here for earlier years compared with what we have published in the past. For example, in the preparation of the 2025 numbers, we found new information that reduced the recent past total for the US (as we discovered two leaders were distance learners rather than in-person learners).
9. King Charles III’s higher education was delivered in the UK (at the University of Cambridge), the country where he was born and lives, and he is head of state of other countries in part by virtue of his position in the UK. So we have opted to exclude this information. This matches how we treat the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, who is one of the heads of state (Co-Prince) of Andorra.
10. The University of the West Indies (UWI) serves 18 countries and territories in the Caribbean. Attempting to unpick the place of study for those world leaders who studied at the UWI is beyond the scope of this study. Therefore, we have assumed that each one studied in their home nation. This is the same practice as followed in earlier years.
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
Dive Brief:
Harvard University could lose access to all federal grants and contracts under proceedings initiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday.
The agency’s Office for Civil Rights has referred the university for suspension and debarment, the process by which the agency can cut off entities from federal grants and contracts if it determines that wrongdoing renders them “not responsible enough to do business” with the government.
The move represents the latest federal effort to bend Harvard to the Trump administration’s will through financial pressure. The administration has sought to use multiple federal agencies to gain increased influence over the higher education sector, singling out Harvard as a prime target.
Dive Insight:
On Monday, HHS’ OCR recommended excluding Harvard from federal funding, arguing the move would protect the public interest. The agency cited its June notice that formally accused Harvard of being in “violent violation” of Title VI by being “deliberately indifferent” to harassment of Jewish and Israeli students on its campus.
Title VI forbids institutions that accept federal funds from discriminating based on race, color or national origin.
HHS can pursue the debarment process when an entity — in this case Harvard — does not voluntarily agree with the agency’s terms to return to compliance with Title VI,according to Paula Stannard, director of HHS’ OCR. HHS and three other federal agencies on the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism in June called for Harvard to “institute adequate changes immediately”but did not publicly detail what those changes should be.
Stannard said Monday that Harvard has the right to a formal hearing during the suspension and debarment process.
“An HHS administrative law judge will make an impartial determination on whether Harvard violated Title VI by acting with deliberate indifference towards antisemitic student-on-student harassment,” Stannard said.
Harvard has 20 days to request the hearing. The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Suspension and debarment applies to all federal grants and contracts, not just those from HHS. And agencies across the federal government can initiate suspension and debarment proceedings. If sustained, debarment is not permanent and typically lasts under three years, according to a 2022 HHS report.
Monday’s announcement is unrelated to HHS’ joint civil rights investigation with the U.S. Department of Education into Harvard and the Harvard Law Review.The agencies opened the probe in April,citing allegations of “race-based discrimination permeating the operations” of the student-run journal.
Months before HHS formally determined Harvard had violated Title VI, the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force froze over $2.2 billion of the university’s grants and contracts.
The halt cameafter Harvard President Alan Garber publicly rebuked the Trump administration’s call for increased federal control of the institution. Its demands includedthat the university hire a third party to audit the viewpoints of Harvard students and employees,halt all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts,and reduce the power of certain faculty and administrators involved in activism.
A federal judge ruled in early September that the Trump administration violated the university’s First Amendment rightsand didn’t follow proper steps when it suspended the funding. No evidence indicated that “fighting antisemitism was Defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard,” the judge wrote.
The judge’s decision barred the Trump administration from cutting off Harvard’s federal funding in retaliation for the university exercising its free speech rights or without following the procedural requirements of Title VI. However, the judge noted that her ruling didn’t prevent the Trump administration from “acting within their constitutional, statutory, or regulatory authority.”
Trump administration officials appealed the decision and said it would keep Harvard “ineligible for grants in the future.”
Harvard is facing increasing pressure from the Trump administration after winning back its frozen grants in court.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights announced Monday that it’s moving to cut off Harvard University’s eligibility to receive federal funding.
The announcement comes amid a power struggle between Harvard and the White House.
While the Trump administration has accused Harvard of allowing antisemitism to run amok on campus—and the university has acknowledged concerns on the front—it has sought sweeping power over the institution and changes that go beyond addressing antisemitism. The HHS Office for Civil Rights previously found that Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on race, color and national origin, and acted with “deliberate indifference toward discrimination and harassment against Jewish and Israeli students,” according to an HHS news release.
Now HHS OCR has recommended cutting off federal funding to Harvard “to protect the public interest” through a suspension and debarment process operated by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources. Suspension would be temporary and debarment would last “for a specified period as a final determination that an entity is not responsible enough to do business with the federal government because of the wrongdoing,” according to the agency. The move comes less than two weeks after the Education Department placed Harvard on heightened cash monitoring—a highly unusual move given the university’s significant resources.
Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
“OCR’s referral of Harvard for formal administrative proceedings reflects OCR’s commitment to safeguard both taxpayer investments and the broader public interest,” HHS OCR director Paula M. Stannard said in a statement. “Congress has empowered federal agencies to pursue Title VI compliance through formal enforcement mechanisms, including the termination of funding or denial of future federal financial assistance, when voluntary compliance cannot be achieved.”
Harvard has 20 days to request a hearing in front of an HHS administrative law judge, who will decide whether the university violated Title VI.
Monday’s announcement is the latest salvo by the federal government after Harvard emerged initially victorious in a legal battle over more than $2 billion in frozen federal research funding. While a judge ruled that the Trump administration illegally froze funds granted to Harvard, the federal government has continued to pressure the private institution to make changes to disciplinary processes, admissions, hiring and more. Other Ivy League institutions, such as Columbia University and Brown University, have agreed to such deals, under federal scrutiny.
Harvard had a financial responsibility score of 2.8, well over the passing 1.5 required by the Education Department, in fiscal year 2023.
John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
The Education Department announced Friday that it placed Harvard University on heightened cash monitoring, a designation that allows greater federal oversight of institutional finances and is typically reserved for colleges in dire financial straits.
By all accounts, Harvard, with its $53 billion endowment, is not.
“It’s harassment,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. “Harvard has the money, yes, but it is adding a headache. It’s adding staff. It’s interfering with students’ ability to access federal financial aid … The government’s making it harder for Harvard to support low-income students, which speaks to exactly what the administration’s goals are here—they’re not to help students, they’re not to improve education, they’re not even to address what they see as concerns at Harvard—they’re just to attack Harvard.”
Institutions placed on heightened cash monitoring are asked to put up a letter of credit that serves as collateral for the Education Department if the institution closes, or to award federal financial aid from their own coffers before being reimbursed by the department, explained Robert Kelchen, head of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Harvard has been asked to do both.
According to a Friday news release from the Education Department, Harvard must put up a $36 million irrevocable letter of credit or “provide other financial protection that is acceptable to the Department,” department officials wrote.
“Students will continue to have access to federal funding, but Harvard will be required to cover the initial disbursements as a guardrail to ensure Harvard is spending taxpayer funds responsibly,” officials wrote.
The federal government froze $2.7 billion in federal grants for Harvard after the university rejected its sweeping demands in April. Harvard sued, and a judge ruled earlier this month that the freeze was illegal. The university has reportedly received some of the frozen funds, but the Trump administration says it’s still hoping to cut a deal with Harvard.
The release says three events triggered Harvard’s heightened cash monitoring designation: a determination by the Department of Health and Human Services that Harvard violated Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by allegedly allowing antisemitism on campus, accusations that the university isn’t complying with an ongoing investigation by the Office for Civil Rights, and the $1 billion in bonds Harvard has issued to make up for pulled federal funding. Harvard did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment Friday.
“Today’s actions follow Harvard’s own admission that there are material concerns about its financial health. As a result, Harvard must now seek reimbursement after distributing federal student aid and post financial protection so that the Department can ensure taxpayer funds are not at risk,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “While Harvard remains eligible to participate in the federal student aid program for now, these actions are necessary to protect taxpayers.”
The department also pointed to layoffs at Harvard and a hiring freeze instituted in the spring. Several other wealthy colleges have frozen hiring and shed staff this year, in part because of the administration’s actions related to federal funding. A few other universities have either issued bonds or taken out loans to get immediate cash. But so far, the department has made no public mention about putting those colleges on heightened cash monitoring.
As of June 1, 538 colleges and universities were on heightened cash monitoring, federal data showed. About one-third of those colleges are private nonprofits, while about 42 percent are for-profit institutions. Most of the institutions—464 of them—are based in the U.S.
Many on the list are private institutions that have low financial responsibility composite scores, Kelchen said. This test assigns institutions a score between -1.0 and 3.0 based on the institution’s primary reserve ratio, equity ratio and net income ratio. To be considered financially responsible, an institution must score at least a 1.5, which Harvard does.
During fiscal year 2023, the latest for which data is publicly available, Harvard’s financial responsibility composite score was 2.8. Harvard’s estimated primary reserve ratio in fiscal year 2023 was 7.6, meaning that the university could operate for about seven and a half years by spending only its existing assets. By comparison, Hampshire College, another private, nonprofit college placed on heightened cash monitoring with a financial responsibility composite score of 0.6, had an estimated primary reserve ratio of 0.3, meaning it could continue operations for about four months before running out of expendable assets. Drew University, another institution on heightened cash monitoring and also with a financial responsibility composite score of 0.6, has a primary reserve ratio of -1.06.
But beyond the financial responsibility score, there are plenty of reasons an institution can end up on heightened cash monitoring. Some institutions, including Hampshire and Arkansas Baptist College, were put on the list due to a late or missing compliance audit. Others have been put on the list while the department reviews their programs, or because their accreditation was revoked. But, “the department can also just specify that an institution is not financially responsible,” Kelchen said.
The political motivation behind the move is clear, Fansmith said.
“To the extent that there is a problem—and to be clear, there are real problems—it’s not Harvard’s ability to pay their bills or meet their obligations. That’s a problem this administration has created,” he said. “They caused a situation, and then they are blaming Harvard for taking reasonable steps to address that situation. It’s also ironic when they send letters to Harvard using terms like ‘enormous’ and ‘massive’ and ‘colossal’ to describe Harvard’s endowment, and now they’re suddenly determining that they’re worried that Harvard is at financial risk … It is absolutely Orwellian.”
Harvard is one of nine universities the Trump administration has targeted with federal funding freezes. In April, the government froze $2.2 billion in federal grants after the university rejected its demands to overhaul its policies on admissions, governance, hiring and more. In July, Harvard, which also sued the Trump administration over the freeze, was reported as open to paying as much as $500 million to settle with the Trump administration, though leaders said they would be reluctant to pay the government directly.
While no deal with Harvard has materialized yet, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC on Thursday that if one does, the $500 million could go toward vocational education.
“If Harvard settles with Donald Trump, you know what he’s going to do with the $500 million?” Lutnick said. “He’s going to have Harvard build vocational schools. The Harvard vocational school, because that’s what America needs.”
But deal or no deal, the frozen funds may start flowing back to Harvard soon.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration illegally froze Harvard’s federal money, but the government plans to appeal. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that Harvard researchers were told some grants were being restored, though it’s not clear how widespread those restorations were.
The Sept. 3 ruling for Harvard by federal judge Allison Burroughs is the most important decision so far for defending academic freedom against the attacks by the Trump administration. The permanent injunction against the Trump administration’s ban on funding to Harvard will eliminate much of the Trump regime’s ability to hold Harvard hostage—unless it is able to find a higher court willing to defend these illicit attacks on higher education and free expression.
With this ruling, Columbia’s decision to submit to the Trump administration and pay $221 million looks not merely spineless but financially stupid. While former Harvard president Lawrence Summers praised Columbia’s submission and urged Harvard to obey, a large group of Harvard faculty and students fortunately pressured their administrators to hold firm, at least for long enough to enable a court ruling that restores the money researchers at Harvard are entitled to.
Now that this ruling has been won, Harvard needs to take the fight to its conclusion. It cannot settle with the Trump administration and give away this victory, since that would leave Harvard at the mercy of Trump officials anytime they decided to punish Harvard again. A settlement by Harvard now would be not only cowardly but crazy.
The conservatives on the Supreme Court may soon be forced to choose between obeying the law and the Constitution or obeying Donald Trump, and they have shown little desire to defy the president’s commands no matter how illicit they are.
The most likely path for the Supreme Court justices to help the Trump administration destroy higher education is jurisdictional. The Trump administration argued unsuccessfully that this entire lawsuit must be heard in another federal court because it relates to federal contracts.
The court could order that the legal process begin anew in a different court, reinstate the Trump bans against Harvard and hope that the long pathway to a resolution would pressure Harvard to give Trump his $500 million extortion and agree to suppress academic freedom without the Supreme Court needing to review a case where the law is unquestionably on Harvard’s side.
But while the unprincipled political hacks who dominate the Supreme Court make that evasion of moral and legal responsibility a possible result, it’s also possible that enough conservative justices have a modicum of integrity left to question the obviously illegal and unconstitutional attacks on Harvard—not because they like Harvard, but because they recognize the necessity of the Supreme Court restraining a president who is indifferent to the law and the Constitution.
It’s important to point out just how dumb the Trump administration officials are. By issuing a May 5 freeze order stating, “Today’s letter marks the end of new grants for the University,” the Trump administration removed any possible doubt that it had made a final decision against Harvard in violation of the law and the First Amendment.
If the Trump administration had simply frozen grants but pretended to make an ongoing evaluation, it might have created enough doubt to survive judicial scrutiny long enough to force Harvard into submission. Instead, the overwhelming desire to punish Harvard by any means possible may ultimately lose this case for the Trump administration. For all of the partisan posturing and ideological bias, some judges still will follow the law, and the law is clearly on Harvard’s side, as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression noted in what it called “the flatly unlawful and unconstitutional means used by the Trump administration in this attempted hostile takeover.”
Every other university now has a clear path for what it needs to do: resist, sue, win. It’s absolutely shocking that Harvard has been the only university to (however reluctantly) undertake the aggressive litigation approach that is the only reasonable strategy against the repression of the Trump regime.
The fight by Harvard against Trump’s authoritarianism could be a victory not just for higher education, but for democracy. But Harvard needs to keep on fighting if it wants to prevail.
A federal judge delivered a sweeping victory for academic freedom Wednesday, ruling that the Trump administration’s freeze of $2.2 billion in federal grant funds to Harvard University was illegal and unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs determined that the administration imposed the funding freeze in retaliation for Harvard’s refusal to comply with demands that would have violated First Amendment protections, including ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and screening international students for ideological biases.
The ruling vacates all freezing orders affecting Harvard and bars Trump administration officials from enforcing those orders going forward.
The administration froze Harvard’s federal grants on April 14, just hours after the university rejected a list of ten demands. While only one demand related to antisemitism concerns, six others targeted ideological and pedagogical issues, including restrictions on who could lead, teach, and be admitted to the university, as well as what could be taught.
Judge Burroughs noted that the “swift termination” of funding occurred before the administration had learned anything substantive about antisemitism on campus or Harvard’s response efforts, suggesting the antisemitism concerns were “at best arbitrary and, at worst, pretextual.”
The funding freeze halted work on critical research projects spanning multiple fields, including studies on tuberculosis, NASA astronauts’ radiation exposure, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and a predictive model to help Veterans Administration emergency room physicians assess suicidal veterans. Burroughs ruled that none of these affected projects had any connection to antisemitism.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) celebrated the ruling as a landmark victory for higher education.
“This is a huge win for all of American higher education, for science, and for free and critical thought in this country,” said Dr. Todd Wolfson, National AAUP President. “Time and again, Trump has tried to restrict speech and cripple lifesaving university research. As today’s victory shows, Trump’s war on higher education is unconstitutional.”
Veena Dubal, National AAUP General Counsel, characterized the administration’s actions as “cynical and lawless, leveraging claims of discrimination to bludgeon critical research and debate.”
The Harvard AAUP chapter also praised the outcome. “This historic ruling underscores the importance of free inquiry, truth, and the rule of law in a democratic society,” said Kirsten Weld, AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter President.
Harvard President Dr. Alan Garber had previously stated that “no government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”
The Education Department pushed back against the ruling through spokesperson Madi Biedermann, who criticized Burroughs as “the same Obama-appointed judge that ruled in favor of Harvard’s illegal race-based admissions practices” before the Supreme Court ultimately overturned those practices.
“Cleaning up our nation’s universities will be a long road, but worth it,” Biedermann said, suggesting the administration may continue its broader efforts to reshape higher education policies.
The ruling establishes important precedent for protecting academic freedom and research independence from political interference. Legal experts note that the decision reinforces constitutional limits on government retaliation against educational institutions for their speech, curriculum choices, and admissions policies.
AAUP leaders said that the victory demonstrates the importance of collective action in defending academic freedom, with faculty and administrators standing together against what they characterize as authoritarian overreach into university governance and research priorities.
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.
Dive Brief:
The Trump administration violated Harvard University’s First Amendment rightsand didn’t follow proper procedures when it froze $2.2 billion of the university’s federal funding earlier this year, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughsalso ruled that the federal government acted arbitrarily and capriciously when halting the funds. The judicial branch must ensure important research isn’t improperly terminated, she wrote,“even if doing so risks the wrath of a government committed to its agenda no matter the cost.”
Burroughsstruck down the Trump administration’s freeze orders and grant termination letters, opening the door for Harvard’s funding to be reinstated. But a White House spokesperson said the Trump administration will immediately move to appeal the decision and keep Harvard “ineligible for grants in the future,” in apparent defiance of the ruling.
Dive Insight:
In April, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts to Harvard, hours after the university’s leadershiprebuked its demands for changes to its admissions, hiring, governance and campus policies.
The federal government carried out the freeze under the auspices of the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which has alleged that the Ivy League institution has not done enough to fight antisemitism on its campus.Subsequent grant termination letters from multiple federal agencies repeated those claims.
But Burroughs questioned that rationale in her decision Wednesday, saying a connection between the federal government’s stated motivations and actions was “wholly lacking.”
The evidence does not “reflect that fighting antisemitism was Defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard,” the judge wrote in her 84-page ruling. “Even if it were, combatting antisemitism cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment.”
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon also told Harvard in a May 5 letter that it would cut the university off from all future research grants — an order that Burroughs also permanently blocked.
Burroughs also cast doubt on the Trump administration’s argument that its revocation of Harvard’s funding had nothing to do with university President Alan Garber’srefusal to comply with extensive federal ultimatums.
Among several wide-ranging requirements, the Trump administration sought to have Harvard hire a third party to audit programs and departments that it described as fueling “antisemitic harassment” or reflecting “ideological capture.” It also called for “meaningful governance reform” within the university, such as reducing the power of faculty engaged in activism.
The ultimatums and cut-off funds prompted Harvard to sue the federal government in April. It argued that the Trump administration violated its free speech by pulling funding for refusing to comply with viewpoint-based demands and that the government didn’t follow the proper procedures for terminating the grants.
Despite the Trump administration assertions that Harvard’s pulled funding was unrelated, Burroughs said its own members undercut its argument.
“Numerous government officials spoke publicly and contemporaneously on these issues, including about their motivations, and those statements are flatly inconsistent with what Defendants now contend,” the judge wrote.
Burroughs cited social media posts from President Donald Trump two days after the task force announced the funding freeze.
“Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds,” he wrote on April 16.
That post and others like it demonstrated that Trump’s ongoing concern was “untethered from antisemitism,” Burroughs said.
But a White House spokesperson doubled down on Wednesday, saying the federal government’s actions against the university are intended to “hold Harvard accountable.”
“To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard University failed to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to plague their campus for years,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston said in an email.Burroughs was “always going to rule in Harvard’s favor, regardless of the facts,” she added.
In late April, Harvard published two long-awaited reports about the climate of its Massachusetts campus — one on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias and another on anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias.
The reports found that Jewish, Israeli and Zionist students and employees at Harvard — along with their Muslim, Arab and Palestinian peers — at times felt shunned or harassed while at the university during the 2023-24 academic year.
“Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did,” Burroughs wrote before noting that the university is “currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be.”
But the federal government failed to consider this, the judge wrote.
“The agencies considered little, if any, data regarding the antisemitism problem at Harvard” and disregarded “substantial policy and other changes” the university enacted to address the issue, Burroughs said.
They also “failed to weigh the importance of any particular grant or to evaluate whether a particular grant recipient had engaged in antisemitic behavior before cutting off critical research,” she said.
Today, a federal court echoed what FIRE has said all along: The Trump administration trampled Harvard University’s First Amendment rights and broke civil rights law when it yanked billions in federal grants and contracts over alleged Title VI violations.
The worthy goal of combating unlawful anti-Semitic discrimination on campus cannot justify the flatly unlawful and unconstitutional means used by the Trump administration in this attempted hostile takeover, including demanding that Harvard impose ideological litmus tests and restrictive speech codes. Our government may not use civil rights laws as a pretext to violate the First Amendment.
