You may find it hard to sympathize with Harvard, the nation's oldest and richest university, especially when it is fighting to keep billions of dollars in taxpayer money flowing into its coffers. But a federal lawsuit that Harvard filed on Monday plausibly claims that the Trump administration's freeze on research funding to the university violates the "unconstitutional conditions" doctrine by requiring the surrender of First Amendment rights in exchange for a government benefit.
Harvard's complaint, which it filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, argues that the funding freeze is "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act and flouts the government's "own regulatory procedures." But I will focus on Harvard's First Amendment claims, which should not be dismissed as mere grumbling over lost revenue.
To "maintain Harvard's financial relationship with the federal government," the General Services Administration, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services said in an April 11 letter to Harvard President Alan Garber, the university must implement a list of hiring, admission, administrative, curricular, and disciplinary reforms. Several of those requirements directly implicate conduct protected by the First Amendment.
