Trump rages as Jewish judge rips administration apart for stripping 'antisemitic' Harvard of its funding in blistering courtroom showdown
Judge Allison Burroughs is presiding over the tense lawsuit to determine whether the Trump administration can legally defund Harvard for not taking a strong enough stance against antisemitism on campus.
While she did not issue a ruling in Monday's hearing, her barrage of questions toward the administration's lawyer and her status as an Obama-era appointee was enough for Trump to find fault with her handling of the case.
'The Harvard case was just tried in Massachusetts before an Obama appointed Judge. She is a TOTAL DISASTER, which I say even before hearing her ruling,' he wrote in a Truth Social post.
'She has systematically taken over the various Harvard cases, and is an automatic 'loss' for the people of our country!
'How did this Trump-hating Judge get these cases? When she rules against us, we will IMMEDIATELY appeal, and WIN.'
Trump argued Harvard 'has $52 billion dollars sitting in the bank, and yet they are anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and anti-America.'
'Much of this money comes from the USA, all to the detriment of other schools, colleges, and institutions,' he wrote, adding, 'we are not going to allow this unfair situation to happen any longer.'
Trump vowed to 'not stop until there is victory', promising to cut funding to Harvard no matter how much effort it took.
But if Judge Burroughs rules in Harvard's favour, it could make Trump's promise hard to deliver on.
Steven Lehotsky, representing Harvard, said at Monday's hearing the case is about the government trying to control the 'inner workings' of the institution.
At Monday's hearing, Harvard asked to reverse funding freezes in an effort to revive Harvard's sprawling scientific and medical research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money.
A lawyer for the government, Michael Velchik, said the Trump administration has authority to cancel the grants after determining the funding did not align with its priorities, namely Trump's executive order combating antisemitism.
He argued Harvard allowed antisemitism to flourish at the university following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel.
He said protesters had camped out on campus chanting antisemitic slogans and cited attacks on Jewish students.
'Harvard claims the government is anti-Harvard. I reject that,' Velchik, a Harvard alumnus, said.
'The government is pro-Jewish students at Harvard. The government is pro-Jewish faculty at Harvard.'
Judge Burroughs pushed back, at one point describing the government's assertions as 'mind-boggling.'
'What I'm wrestling with is this idea that the executive branch can decide what is discriminatory or racist,' she said.
'You're saying you can terminate a contract for any and all reasons, even if the reason you're giving is a violation of the Constitution? I don't think you can justify a contract action based on impermissible suppression of speech.'
Velchik said the case comes down to the government's choosing how best to spend billions of dollars in research funding.
Judge Burroughs said: 'Let's assume for the sake of argument that Harvard has not covered itself in glory on the topic of antisemitism.'
Noting her own Jewish faith, the judge asked what the relationship was between antisemitism and cutting funding to cancer research.
'You're not taking away grants from labs that have been antisemitic,' she noted.
Despite her strongly worded rebuke, Judge Burroughs did not deliver a verdict at the bench, and is instead expected to issue a written decision at a later date.
Harvard's lawsuit accused the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a series of demands from a federal antisemitism task force in April.
The task force's demands included sweeping changes related to campus protests, academics and admissions.
Harvard was told to audit the viewpoints of students and faculty and admit more students or hire new professors if the campus was found to lack diverse points of view.
Harvard President Alan Garber says the university has made changes to combat antisemitism but said no government 'should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.'
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35 minutes ago
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'I had to fight to get elected to a legislature that ranks dead last for female representation, and now I get to squeeze into a space that feels like it was designed by someone who thought women didn't exist -- or at least didn't have bladders,' Behn said. The Maryland State House is the country's oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use, operational since the late 1700s. Archivists say its bathroom facilities were initially intended for white men only because desegregation laws were still in place. Women's restrooms were added after 1922, but they were insufficient for the rising number of women elected to office. Delegate Pauline Menes complained about the issue so much that House Speaker Thomas Lowe appointed her chair of the 'Ladies Rest Room Committee,' and presented her with a fur covered toilet seat in front of her colleagues in 1972. She launched the women's caucus the following year. It wasn't until 2019 that House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, the first woman to secure the top position, ordered the addition of more women's restrooms along with a gender-neutral bathroom and a nursing room for mothers in the Lowe House Office Building. 'No longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic' As more women were elected nationwide in the 20th century, some found creative workarounds. In Nebraska's unicameral Legislature, female senators didn't get a dedicated restroom until 1988, when a facility was added in the chamber's cloakroom. There had previously been a single restroom in the senate lounge, and Sen. Shirley Marsh, who served for some 16 years, would ask a State Patrol trooper to guard the door while she used it, said Brandon Metzler, the Legislature's clerk. In Colorado, female House representatives and staff were so happy to have a restroom added in the chamber's hallway in 1987 that they hung a plaque to honor then-state Rep. Arie Taylor, the state's first Black woman legislator, who pushed for the facility. The plaque, now inside a women's bathroom in the Capitol, reads: 'Once here beneath the golden dome if nature made a call, we'd have to scramble from our seats and dash across the hall ... Then Arie took the mike once more to push an urge organic, no longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic.' The poem concludes: 'In mem'ry of you, Arie (may you never be forgot), from this day forth we'll call that room the Taylor Chamber Pot.' New Mexico Democratic state Rep. Liz Thomson recalled missing votes in the House during her first year in office in 2013 because there was no women's restroom in the chamber's lounge. An increase in female lawmakers — New Mexico elected the largest female majority Legislature in U.S. history in 2024 — helped raise awareness of the issue, she said. 'It seems kind of like fluff, but it really isn't,' she said. 'To me, it really talks about respect and inclusion.' The issue is not exclusive to statehouses. In the U.S. Capitol, the first restroom for congresswomen didn't open until 1962. While a facility was made available for female U.S. Senators in 1992, it wasn't until 2011 that the House chamber opened a bathroom to women lawmakers. Jeannette Rankin of Montana was the first woman elected to a congressional seat. That happened in 1916. Willner insists that knowing the Kentucky Capitol wasn't designed for women gives her extra impetus to stand up and make herself heard. 'This building was not designed for me," she said. "Well, guess what? I'm here.' ___ Associated Press writer Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed. ____ The Associated Press' women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
