The First Amendment and University Funding

According to news reports, since March 2025, the administration has frozen or cut funding for major United States research universities. The freezes and cuts consist of, at least in part, terminations or cancellations of existing or future contracts with the United States, and the reduction, cancellation or elimination of grant funding.

The First Amendment protects academic freedom and prohibits viewpoint discrimination. The administration has characterized its actions as necessary to enforce Title VI, which prohibits discrimination by programs that receive federal funding. To the extent that courts find that the government is attempting to assert governmental control over universities’ academic operations, courts should probably hold that the funding limitations are unlawful.

The most significant contractual funding freezes and cuts have been directed towards at least seven major institutions: Columbia ($400 million); UPenn ($175 million); Princeton ($210 million); Brown ($510 million); Cornell (at least $1 billion); Northwestern ($750 million); and Harvard (at least $2.2 billion). In addition, funding from the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”), whose recipients include major research universities. has been cut by at least $2.8 billion. In absolute dollars, NIH funding has not been this low since September 2014. Most NIH funding goes to universities and hospitals for medical and health research. Northwestern, is using general funding to make up some of the shortfall. Harvard is using at least $250 million of other funds to continue some of its research work as a stopgap.

Some of these actions are based on the work of the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which consists at least of representatives from the U.S. Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration.

Regarding the actions taken against Columbia, the justification was at least in part on Columbia’s alleged failure to protect Jewish students on campus. According to Harvard’s lawsuit challenging the funding cuts, the freeze in funding was based on “concerns of antisemitism and ideological capture”.

Two lawsuits have been filed to challenge these funding freezes; there are important differences between the two, and one was recently dismissed.

Regarding Harvard, the University itself filed suit challenging then funding cuts and freezes. At least 26 higher education institutions filed an amicus brief in support of Harvard. Both Harvard and amici focused, at least in part, on the decades-long history of government funded research at universities in the United States. That case, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, is pending and is on an expedited briefing schedule.

In contrast, the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York regarding the Columbia cuts and freezes has been dismissed without prejudice for lack of standing. Importantly, the lawsuit challenging those cuts was not brought by the University itself, but by its faculty through the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers. On June 16, 2025, the Court dismissed that complaint without prejudice because those plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge funding cuts made to Columbia University, which as of June 16, 2025, had elected not to join that lawsuit.

While Harvard’s lawsuit enjoys strong support within the academic community, none of the institutions who signed on to an omnibus amicus brief also did so in the Columbia action, even though both face the same types of funding cuts and freezes. Likewise, Columbia did not join the amicus brief filed in Harvard’s lawsuit. Both institutions have so far charted different courses in navigating the administration’s funding cuts and freezes.

According to the Court’s decision in the lawsuit filed by labor unions representing Columbia professors, teachers and other professions, Columbia University itself is actively negotiating with the administration regarding the termination of funding and has chosen not to sue the administration. But as of the time of that decision, the administration has not restored any of the frozen funding. Now that the Unions’ lawsuit has been dismissed, and Columbia appears to have chosen negotiation over litigation, it appears that Columbia has made a strategic decision not to go to Court, at least for now.

Meanwhile, Harvard’s lawsuit (and subsequent appeals) should be an important bellwether regarding how courts will treat these funding cuts. We are not aware of any other pending lawsuits regarding these funding cuts.

Certainly, the funding cuts have a societal cost. In the short-term, some university and private sector employees have been or will be laid off, and private businesses that work with affected universities will lose some business. In addition, at least in the short- and medium-term, there will be less medical and health research in this country, and there is no way to know at this time whether the private sector will pick up the slack. The funding cuts threaten the broader scientific and public goals that this funding was meant to achieve.

Walter M. Luers, Esq., is a partner at Cohn Lifland Pearlman Herrmann & Knopf, LLP in Saddle Brook, New Jersey.