Nature, Harvard researchers devastated as Trump team cuts nearly 1,000 grants
Wall Street Journal, Harvard Digs In for Battle, but Trump’s Blows Are Landing
The Lawsuit about Federal Grants
Harvard has two lawsuits pending against Team Trump. The first one challenges the draconian cuts in federal research grants—said by Team Trump to be justified by the university’s purported “antisemitism,” its purported discrimination against white people, and a hodgepodge of other bellyaches, some vague and hard to pin down. I wrote about it on April 22.
The Harvard legal team elected not to ask for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, but instead to demand a highly, highly expedited summary judgment process. Judge Burroughs’ order of April 28 indicates that Team Trump agreed to the schedule, leading up to oral argument on July 21—and presumably a district court decision by the end of the summer.
That means that teams of lawyers are reviewing evidence that probably runs to hundreds of thousands of pages and distilling it into legal briefs and accompanying exhibits.
In a normal case, one could expect the process to take several years. Here, it is scheduled to take only several months.
I count 17 lawyers on the Harvard legal team. It’s a little top heavy, but, that said, there are a lot of spear carriers, too. They have been getting very little sleep these past few weeks.
Been there, done that.
And a related point: wholly apart from the fact that Team Trump’s legal position eats shit, I very strongly suspect that the government’s legal team is being outmanned, outthought, and outgunned by Team Harvard.
But we shall see.
The Lawsuit about Foreign Students
As you may know, this is a separate lawsuit. On May 22, Secretary Kristi Noem—that’s the person who doesn’t know what habeas corpus means—revoked Harvard ability to have any foreign students. Harvard obviously saw that one coming a mile away. The next day, May 23, it filed a new lawsuit, asked for a temporary restraining order, and received its TRO within just a few hours.
That was just a few days ago. I assume that a preliminary injunction will soon be granted, that the First Circuit Court of Appeals will rule promptly In Harvard’s favor, and that the case will reach the Supreme Court next fall.
In the meantime, though, it’s reasonable to expect that a fair number of the 6,800 foreign students normally to be found on campus—often as teaching assistants and lab assistants—will take flight.
A Change in the Harvard Legal Team
For the second case, Harvard modified its team. Once again, Steven Lehotsky, of Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP—revered litigator for Federalist Society causes—signed the complaint and identified a number of his partners and associates as helpers in the case. Once again, one partner each from Quinn Emanuel and King & Spalding are on the case. But Ropes & Gray is out, in the new case, replaced by a team of very heavy hitters from Jenner & Block.
As far as I can tell, Ropes & Gray is still on the first case, the one about grants. I expect their lawyers are overwhelmed with that case. Also, the head of the Ropes & Gray team has an excellent reputation, but he seems to know a lot about white collar crime, not constitutional law.
With luck, the new folks on Team Harvard from Jenner & Block will well and truly give ‘em hell.
And Finally, a Few Random Facts
There are about 320,000 living alumni of Harvard University. They tend to be richer than average. An estimated 18,000 of them are believed to have more than $30 million in wealth. Of those 18,000 very wealthy alumni, the average net worth is said to exceed $300 million.
OK, folks, time to stand up for Harvard.
Facing MAGA 