Revenge Of The Nerds: Teachers, Professors Sue To Undo Trump Science Funding Cuts

Two academic organizations sued the Trump administration Tuesday for the allegedly unlawful withdrawal of $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University and associated demands for policy changes.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed a complaint [PDF] in New York City against the US Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the General Services Administration, and associated agency heads.

The lawsuit "challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented effort to overpower a university’s academic autonomy and control the thought, association, scholarship, and expression of its faculty and students."

It comes after the White House on March 7 told Columbia University in a letter that $400 million in federal grants had been cancelled, citing the school's supposed failure to protect Jewish students from harassment.

Another letter was sent on March 13 demanding specific actions, including expelling pro-Palestinian protesters, implementing punishments for campus disruption, banning masks, and "placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership for a minimum of five years."

The plaintiffs, represented by Protect Democracy and Altshuler Berzon LLP, argue Team Trump is trying to control thought and speech in academic institutions, a tactic practiced by authoritarian regimes in, say, Hungary, Turkey, and Brazil.

The complaint cites similar threats made to Georgetown University Law School and 60 other colleges and universities. And it argues that the stated basis for the administration's actions – enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act – does not authorize such coercion and fails to abide by statutory requirements. Before funding can be cut off, the statute requires an effort to allow voluntary compliance to resolve alleged violations and calls for hearings and notice to the university and Congress when resolution efforts fail.

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Those requirements exist, the complaint says, because Congress understood it would be unwise in a system, where institutions depend on federal funding, to empower federal agencies to deny those funds without due process.

And the lawsuit points to Columbia's acquiescence to administration demands as evidence that the federal government's financial power can be unlawfully used to threaten academic freedom.

"By revoking $400 million in grant funds and threatening to cancel more, the Trump administration has been able to accomplish through financial pressure what the First Amendment forbids it from doing directly: punish protesters based on their viewpoint, regulate the admissions process, and alter the ideological makeup of faculty," the complaint says. "Just last year the Supreme Court unanimously held such coercion to be unconstitutional."

The withdrawal of funds directly affects numerous projects to benefit the public. Among 161 grants to Columbia University that were terminated between March 10 and March 14, 2025, were research initiatives focused on Alzheimer's Disease, prenatal care, and pediatric infectious diseases.

Columbia University Irving Medical Center lost 232 grants, which amount to about a quarter of its research portfolio. One of these was an effort to develop a nasal spray to block viral infections. Another focused on lowering America's maternal mortality rate.

"The Trump administration’s threats and coercion at Columbia are part of a clear authoritarian playbook meant to crush academic freedom and critical research in American higher education," said Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP, in a statement.

"Faculty, students, and the American public will not stand for it. The repercussions extend far beyond the walls of the academy. Our constitutional rights, and the opportunity for our children and grandchildren to live in a democracy are on the line." ®