A group of US professors has sued Donald Trump’s administration over its threat to withhold $8.7bn in federal funding from Harvard University.
The lawsuit, filed by the American Association of University Presidents and its Harvard affiliate, is one part of a growing effort by faculty, students and alumni to push back against attacks by the Trump administration on US higher education institutions.
“Eliminating discrimination and protecting all students is important. But Trump is defying the Civil Rights Act, terrifying students, and illegally holding hostage grants for hospitals and scientific research so he can accomplish his real goal of punishing academics for our politics,” Nikolas Bowie, a Harvard law professor supporting the lawsuit, said in a statement.