The 51p complaint is online here: https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2025/04/Harvard-Funding-Freeze-Order-Complaint.pdf
Interestingly, Trump, himself is not a named defendant, his cabal persons are named. (Would SCOTUS say they have derivative presidential immunity? Would SCOTUS say they are above being held in contempt? There, we wait and see.)
And, First two sentences of the complaint:
Scientific advancement and the pursuit of knowledge fuel America’s innovation, economic success, and global leadership. The commitment to expanding human understanding is foundational at American universities, including Harvard, the Nation’s oldest institution of higher learning
So America's innovation, economic success,and global leadership, essentially reduces to truth, justice and the American Way, if you allow a bit of imagination into thinking.
Functional equivalence. It's there if you want to see it. And being a bastion of scientific advancement and the pursuit of knowledge is neither shabby, nor wrong headed. It is The American Way, sort of. At least an arguable part.
In any event, the Complaint's opening is not boring boilerplate, though it is legalese.
In reading a complaint there are many ways to do it. Here the start is to scroll to the prayer for relief, and the signature page. What's wanted, and who's arguing for it.
The prayer for relief is at p.48-9. Below is a screenshot of the signature page.
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With a host of lawyers from DC and Boston and elsewhere signed up, Harvard can equal Bondi's DOJ in paperwork, and likely will do things better, being chosen to do better. Which of the named lawyers are Harvard Law School alums would be interesting to know, but not worth researching. Likely all or most. Steven P. Lehotsky signs as lead counsel. He is an HLS alum. Federalist Society contributor. Scalia clerk. ALI member. Wilmer Hale alum. LehotskyKellerCohn is the lead firm, with the named founding three all counsel under the complaint.
Historical background and summarzation of the litigation by John Timmer of Ars Technica lays a groundwork for any further study readers wish to do.
There are more items worth attention. From the complaint (with footnoting omitted):
2. [...] To date, the Government has — with little warning and even less explanation — slashed billions of dollars in federal funding to universities across America, including Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Northwestern. This case involves the Government’s efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking at Harvard.
3. On April 11, 2025, citing concerns of antisemitism and ideological capture, the Government identified ten conditions Harvard must satisfy to receive federal research funding already committed to by the Government and relied on by Harvard, its researchers, and its affiliates (the “April 11 Letter,” attached as Exhibit A). Ex. A at 2, 4. The Government dictated that Harvard “reform and restructur[e]” its governance to “reduc[e] the power” of certain students, faculty, and administrators. Id. at 2. It required that Harvard hire a third-party to conduct an “audit” of the viewpoints of Harvard’s student body, faculty, and staff. Id. at 3-4. Then, based on the results of this university-wide viewpoint audit, Harvard must “hir[e] a critical mass of new faculty” and “admit[] a critical mass of students” to achieve “viewpoint diversity” in “each department, field, or teaching unit”—to the Government’s satisfaction as determined in the Government’s sole
discretion. Id. And the Government has demanded that Harvard terminate or reform its academic “programs” to the Government’s liking. Id. at 4. All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions.
4. Harvard is committed to “combatting antisemitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry” and to “broaden[ing] the intellectual and viewpoint diversity within [its] community.” Harvard is actively undertaking structural reforms to do both. And while important steps have been taken, Harvard acknowledges that there is still “much work to do.” Harvard also fully recognizes the requirement that it comply with all federal laws, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
5. But, as Harvard made clear last week in a letter to the Government (attached as Exhibit B), “[n]either Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.” Ex. B at 2. In the words of Harvard’s President, Alan M. Garber, “[t]he University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” “No
government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”. In response to Harvard’s defense of its own constitutional freedoms, the federal Government announced that it was freezing “$2.2 billion in multiyear grants and $60M in multiyear contract value to Harvard University” (the “Freeze Order,” attached as Exhibit C). Within hours of the Freeze Order, Harvard began receiving stop work orders. The freezing of federal funds amounts to final agency action and has put vital medical, scientific, technological,
and other research at risk. And that risk is growing. Just yesterday, it was reported that the Government is “planning to pull an additional $1 billion of [Harvard]’s funding for health.
NOTE: The Government's bullying letter is online as is the Harvard response. Both items and the complaint are documents accompanying a Harvard website, https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/
That dedicated website is a helpful point from which further research and reading can begin.
https://www.theeditors.com/p/harvard-hires-a-scalia-clerk-to-challenge-administrative-state-steven-lehotsky-nra-vullo is a perspective enlarging item.
Eugene Volokh (Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law) has, among other posts, commented on the intimidation of universities and law firms, and specifically the Harvard situation. Naturally, his posts (like the opinions of the other bloggers) are his own, and not endorsed by any institution.
In particular, this April 6, 2025, item, and here, are of interest.
The idea is not to exhaustively survey public commentary. Enough source material is given that intelligent search can be begun by readers interested in more detail.
For most readers enough links are given.
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Crabgrass opinion is Trump is being a cosmic asshole and should stop. Beyond that, the bullying on several fronts is worrisome and there are four more years of it. This man, his hangers on, are dangerous. Opinions can and do differ. He won the election by a narrow margin, but nonetheless it was a win. Now he is trying to rival the gentleman running El Salvador and the gentleman running Hungary, both being bad role models who intrigue Trump.
Canada and Denmark/Greenland have cause to worry, while China has size and may teach a lesson, with the EU and financial forces in the US of A aiding the teaching. There is SCOTUS, where stuff happens, but there should be a limit to how facilitating others there (besides Thomas and Alito) will go.
Congress is under Republican control in both houses, each of which lack a spine.
The Dems try, but the forces against them outnumber them.