A federal judge on Monday challenged the Trump administration's reasons for slashing billions of dollars in federal funding to Harvard University, triggering a furious response from the president.

Judge Allison Burroughs pressed the administration's lawyer to explain how cutting grants to diverse research budgets would help protect students from alleged campus anti-Semitism, US media reported.

Trump preemptively fired off a post on his Truth Social platform blasting Burroughs, an appointee of Democratic president Barack Obama, claiming without evidence that she had already decided against his government -- and vowing to appeal.

The Ivy League institution sued in April to restore more than $2 billion in frozen funds. The administration insists its move is legally justified over Harvard's failure to protect Jewish and Israeli students, particularly amid campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza.

The threat to Harvard's funding stream forced it to implement a hiring freeze while pausing ambitious research programs, particularly in the public health and medical spheres, that experts warned risked American lives.

Harvard has argued that the administration is pursuing "unconstitutional retaliation" against it and several other universities targeted by Trump early in his second term.

Both sides have sought a summary judgment to avoid trial, but it was unclear if Burroughs would grant one either way.

The judge pressed the lone lawyer representing Trump's administration to explain how cutting funding to Harvard's broad spectrum of research related to combatting anti-Semitism, the Harvard Crimson student newspaper reported from court.

"The Harvard case was just tried in Massachusetts before an Obama appointed Judge. She is a TOTAL DISASTER, which I say even before hearing her Ruling," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"Harvard has $52 Billion Dollars sitting in the Bank, and yet they are anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and anti-America," he claimed, pointing to the university's world-leading endowment.

Both Harvard and the American Association of University Professors brought cases against the Trump administration's measures which were combined and heard Monday.

'Control of academic decision making'

Trump has sought to have the case heard in the Court of Federal Claims instead of in the federal court in Boston, just miles away from the heart of the university's Cambridge campus.

"This case involves the Government's efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard," Harvard said in its initial filing.

The Ivy League institution has been at the forefront of Trump's campaign against top universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and "viewpoint diversity."

Trump and his allies claim that Harvard and other prestigious universities are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism, particularly surrounding protests against Israel's war in Gaza.

The government has also targeted Harvard's ability to host international students, an important source of income who accounted for 27 percent of total enrollment in the 2024-2025 academic year.

A proclamation issued in June declared that the entrance of international students to begin a course at Harvard would be "suspended and limited" for six months and that existing overseas enrollees could have their visas terminated.

The move has been halted by a judge.

The US government earlier this month subpoenaed Harvard University for records linked to students allegedly involved in a wave of pro-Palestinian student protests that the Trump administration labeled anti-Semitic.

Washington has also told a university accrediting body that Harvard's certification should be revoked after it allegedly failed to protect Jewish students in violation of federal civil rights law.

by Gregory Walton