Judge rules that Trump’s Harvard University fund freeze used antisemitism as ‘smokescreen’

A US federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration illegally froze more than £2billion in federal funding to Harvard University over claims of antisemitism.

In an 84-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs concluded while there was a need to fight antisemitism, there was also a need to protect free-speech.

She then accused Trump of using allegations of antisemitism at elite U.S. universities such as Harvard as a “smokescreen” for advancing the administration’s political agenda.

“We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other,” wrote Burroughs, who is Jewish.

“Harvard 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 ruling added:”A review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities”.

Alan Garber, the Jewish physician and economist who leads Harvard,  had earlier written a letter explaining why the country’s oldest university would not agree to the Trump administration’s demands.

“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard,” he wrote.

Rabbi David Wolpe,  a visiting scholar at Harvard, who served on a board looking at the impact of pro-Palestine protests on Jewish students, said it was understandable that Trump had sought to clampdown on those behind antisemitism on campuses in the States.

But he warned that funding should be used  “to suppress genuine free speech.”

Official figures show that Harvard receives a £45 billion endowment, and has more than £8 billion in multiyear federal grants and another £200 million in active contracts