The school year is starting off better than it ended for Harvard. The university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose federal funding was frozen in April, scored a major legal victory this week against the Trump administration. In a ruling released Wednesday, September 3, a federal judge in Boston found that the suspension of $2.6 billion in grants was unlawful.

The story is not over. The Trump administration can still appeal the decision all the way to the US Supreme Court and has other forms of retaliation at its disposal against Harvard.

The institution, which has taken the lead in opposing Donald Trump academically, scored a clear victory but remains cautious. "Even as we acknowledge the important principles affirmed in today's ruling, we will continue to assess the implications of the opinion, monitor further legal developments, and be mindful of the changing landscape in which we seek to fulfill our mission," Harvard's president, Alan Garber, wrote in a statement published Wednesday evening.

Trump has accused prestigious East Coast Ivy League institutions, as well as UCLA in Los Angeles, of allowing anti-Semitic speech and behavior to spread during protests against the war in Gaza. He has used this argument to justify various punitive measures against these universities, which he sees as the heart of the progressive and "woke" thought he abhors. These measures include freezing funds, suspending foreign student visas, and cutting scholarship programs.

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