Harvard is taking the Trump administration to court. The judge overseeing the case is no stranger to either side

By Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN

(CNN) — The judge tasked with weighing in on the government’s reach into higher education in Harvard University’s recent lawsuit against the Trump administration is an experienced prosecutor and jurist with a history of taking on tough cases – including those involving both the Ivy League and the president.

“95% of life is showing up,” US District Court Allison Dale Burroughs quipped Monday morning inside a Boston courtroom where she is overseeing Harvard’s legal battle against the Trump administration over $2 billion in frozen federal funds.

The hearing was supposed to be streamed on Zoom, but courthouse technology staff struggled to get it working. Burroughs sat for 15 minutes on the bench, noting “81 unhappy people” were waiting to get in. After the attorneys for each side said they were ready to proceed, she started the hearing sans-Zoom.

Harvard has asked for an expedited final decision rather than an immediate order to restore the money, leaving $2 billion in federal grants and contracts the university says is critical to important research hanging in the balance. The university’s lawyers specifically asked in a court filing that Burroughs be assigned to this case, citing her involvement in a related case over federal research funding brought by the Association of American Universities, which includes Harvard.

Burroughs “is a brilliant jurist and I think she’ll give everyone a fair shake,” Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard, told CNN on Monday.

“It looks like the parties are trying to advance this case as quickly as possible,” Burroughs said Monday. At the 15-minute hearing, she scheduled oral arguments for July 21.

CNN has reached out to the White House, Burroughs and Harvard University for comment.

Path to the district court judge seat

Burroughs was working as a partner in Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP, a law firm co-founded by former Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, when President Barack Obama nominated her as a district court judge in the summer of 2014.

Burroughs graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont before receiving her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988.

She spent time in the early 1980s waitressing at a longtime pub on Capitol Hill and working as a congressional intern for Democratic Congressman Matthew McHugh, Burroughs told the Senate Judiciary Committee, before starting her law career clerking for Judge Norma Shapiro, the first female judge in the Third Circuit’s Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

She then spent about 17 years prosecuting criminal cases for the federal government as a US attorney in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, taking on emerging criminal gangs, drug offenders, economic crime and technology-focused cases.

Donald Sterling, former US attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said hiring Burroughs as an assistant US attorney years ago was an easy decision. Even then, she was a star, he told CNN.

“Allison was never shy about speaking her mind but usually did so with a sense of humor,” Sterling said, describing Burroughs as “hard working, balanced, smart and highly ethical.”

“Allison was a no-nonsense prosecutor but always listened to what defense counsel had to say. When making a prosecution decision, she was guided wholly by the facts and the law,” he added.

Obama said he was confident Burroughs would “serve the American people with integrity and a steadfast commitment to justice,” in a statement around the time of her nomination.

As part of her confirmation process, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Burroughs to list her 10 most significant cases. Among those she listed were one of the first cases in the nation tied to the Patriot Act – enacted after the September 11 terror attacks to broaden the government’s surveillance powers; a complex offshore money laundering scheme; large-scale telemarketing fraud; an enforcer for a violent crack cocaine trafficking organization; and a Maine state trooper accused of stealing and selling championship baseball rings from Boston Red Sox player Ted Williams.

“I am fully committed to putting aside any personal views that I might have and being fair to all who might appear before me,” Burroughs told the committee. “During my career I have litigated effectively on behalf of both the U.S. government and individual defendants.”

She was sworn in as a US district judge for the District of Massachusetts in January 2015.

Harvard affirmative action decision

This isn’t Burroughs’ first high-profile case involving Harvard University. As a federal judge in 2019, she 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.”

Race-conscious admissions hold “an important place in society and help ensure that colleges and universities can offer a diverse atmosphere that fosters learning, improves scholarship, and encourages mutual respect and understanding,” the judge said in her decision.

The case prompted nationwide scrutiny of university admissions practices, and in 2023, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision saying universities could no longer take race into consideration in admissions decisions. The decision overturned long-standing precedent that has benefited Black and Latino students in higher education.

History with the Trump administration

As a federal district judge, Burroughs has put guardrails on the Trump administration before.

As hordes of protesters descended on US airports where travelers were being detained under Trump’s 2017 travel ban on people from seven predominantly Muslim countries, Burroughs issued a temporary restraining order blocking the removal of individuals from those countries. Boston Logan International Airport became a de facto shelter for many of those families.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Burroughs oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT against the Trump administration, which insisted international students at schools offering online-only classes would need to leave the United States. The administration walked back that policy before a ruling was made.

And two weeks ago, Burroughs issued another temporary restraining order blocking Department of Energy cuts to federal research funding in the lawsuit brought by the Association of American Universities.

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CNN’s Kara Scannell, Nicki Brown, Joan Biskupic, Andy Rose and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.