The Trump administration has appealed a court order that largely restored funding it had cut from Harvard University for allegedly tolerating antisemitism and harboring liberal bias.

Harvard has been at the forefront of Donald Trump’s campaign against top US universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and “viewpoint diversity.”

Trump and his administration moved to freeze billions of dollars of funding for the university and its specialist colleges, hampering life-saving research and high-tech innovation.

In September, a Boston federal judge ruled that largely unlawful and ordered the funds to be restored.
In a brief court filing late Thursday, lawyers for the administration wrote that “Defendants hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.”
There is no date for the appeal to be heard.

The Trump administration has also previously sought to remove Harvard from an electronic student immigration registry and instructed US embassies around the world to deny visas to international students hoping to attend the Massachusetts-based university.

Harvard has sued the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to block the efforts, arguing that they were illegal and unconstitutional and the courts have put those moves on hold for now.

International students accounted for 27 percent of total enrollment at Harvard in the 2024-2025 academic year and are a major source of income.