Trump accuses Harvard of ‘judge shopping’ and threatens to send $3 billion of its federal grants to trade schools

By Donald Judd, Danya Gainor, CNN

President Donald Trump has again trained his ire on Harvard University, accusing the school Monday of “judge shopping” in its legal battle with the White House and threatening to cut off $3 billion in federal grant funding over its handling of anti-Israel protests.

“I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land,” Trump wrote on social media. “What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!”

Harvard President Alan Garber said redirecting the funding would benefit neither the university nor the public.

“The money that goes to research universities in the form of grants and contracts, which is almost all of the federal support that we get, is used to pay for work that we perform at the behest of the government,” Garber told NPR in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

“So, in reallocating to some other use, including trade schools, it means that work just won’t be performed,” he said. “So, the right question is, is this the most effective use of federal funding?”

Trump’s newest threats come as Harvard begins its spring commencement week in the shadow of a months-long feud between the Ivy League school and the Trump administration over antisemitism, federal funding and the First Amendment.

The Trump administration last week cut off Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, a decision swiftly halted by a federal judge hours after the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university sued.

Now, the university’s future ability to enroll international students – which make up about 27% of the student body – will depend on how the case plays out in court, with the litigation adding to the piling docket of legal battles for the administration. A hearing in the case is expected to take place Tuesday.

Harvard also sued the Trump administration last month over its freezing of $2.2 billion in federal funding after the university wouldn’t agree to policy changes demanded by the White House. The White House later cut another $450 million in grants, and the president has threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

The initial suit, along with the one over international students, has been assigned to US District Court Judge Allison Dale Burroughs, who in 2019 upheld the Ivy League’s admissions process in an affirmative action case – a decision the US Supreme Court later overturned.

She ruled that while Harvard’s admissions process was “not perfect,” she would not “dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better.”

As a federal district judge, she’s also put guardrails on the Trump administration before in cases related to his 2017 travel ban targeting predominantly Muslim countries, international students during the coronavirus pandemic, and the Department of Energy’s recent cuts to federal research funding.

Trump in his Monday post also took aim at the bipartisan practice of “judge shopping,” where plaintiffs file cases outside their obvious court of jurisdiction in an effort to be assigned a judge who may have a more favorable review of the litigation compared to a random assignment. Members of both parties have used the practice to further their policy goals.

“The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) – But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!” Trump wrote Monday.

CNN has reached out to Harvard for comment.

But Harvard, a Massachusetts-based school, would be expected to bring any lawsuits in Boston’s federal court. Still, the district has no Trump appointees, and the federal appellate court overseeing New England is perceived as a tough venue for the president’s more hardline, politically sensitive cases.

This week, Trump also sent shockwaves through campus when he demanded the “names and countries” of the thousands of international students at Harvard University.

“We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country. Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason!” Trump said on social media.

Harvard – like all US schools with foreign students – is required to keep the federal government constantly updated with basic information on its international pupils using a database called SEVIS, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. The most recent report released by Harvard shows most of its foreign students come from China, followed by Canada, India, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

Harvard and the Trump administration are scheduled to meet in court on Thursday and argue their cases to Burroughs, who will decide whether to extend her decision to block the government’s actions by issuing a preliminary injunction.

At the same time as the scheduled hearing, nearly 9,000 degree candidates are due to be celebrating commencement on Harvard’s campus, just 6 miles from the federal courthouse.

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CNN’s Andy Rose contributed to this report.