In 2022, Harvard University found itself in a legal battle over affirmative action. It turned to longtime ally WilmerHale, a powerful law firm known for, among other things, providing pro bono representation for progressive causes.
Once again in legal crosshairs in 2025, Harvard has decided that a more balanced legal team may be the way to go this time. Facing a White House under President Donald Trump that has threatened to rescind billions in approved funding and take away the university's tax-exempt status, the Ivy League school has added Right-leaning attorneys to help it battle what it claims are numerous assaults on its First Amendment rights.
Upsetting the Status Quo
Despite being a transfer graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, President Trump's ire appears to be centered on Ivy League schools. These universities — Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Harvard, Yale, UPenn, Colgate, and Princeton — have found themselves under scrutiny from government agencies that include the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
Created at the beginning of President Trump's second term, the organization doesn't list all of its 20 or so members and has no publicly shared guidelines or procedures. Issuing recommendations to the White House, the Force cites alleged antisemitism at universities as justification for threatened withholding of already approved funds to the schools.
In many cases, the funds are intended for research grants. As Ivy League schools often attract the best and brightest students and professors in the world, some of the greatest scientific and medical discoveries have occurred in university labs.
When threatened with the denial of promised federal funds, Columbia University capitulated to the demands of the Trump Administration, agreeing to allow oversight on issues like foreign students, campus protests, and so-called "woke" ideology.
Harvard, however, refused to be forced into firing professors, banning foreign students, or giving any other aspect of control over the school to the government. This incited more wrath from the White House, with President Trump adding his intention to have the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status. Doing so is in apparent violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires a lengthy audit by the IRS to see if the tax-exempt entity in question had political and commercial influences outweighing their research and educational standards, and cannot be driven by a president's request.
In the age-old tradition of those who feel they're on the right side of the law, Harvard circled the wagons and brought in the attorneys. This time, however, they reasoned that diversity in their representation might elicit the best results.
Variety Is the Spice of Life (and Legal Teams)
Harvard appears to be presenting this battle as about the laws involved, rather than the perception of a liberal college defiantly fighting a conservative administration. At first glance, both ordering the IRS to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status and freezing funding that's already approved by Congress would seem to fall outside the purview of the executive's legal powers. Given the possibility of some or all of the legal actions ending up in front of the current conservative supermajority of the U.S. Supreme Court, Harvard has adapted their legal approach.
Harvard's current legal team is composed of 17 attorneys, many with a conservative background. Two are former clerks for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Until recently, William A. Burck was an advisor for the Trump Organization. President Trump fired him once Burck announced he'd be representing Harvard.
Other additions include an attorney who investigated Joe Biden over classified documents and a former solicitor general of Texas who defended the state's abortion restrictions. While the legal team includes other lawyers with differing political leanings, the message Harvard is sending seems clear — that it's not about a hotbed of "radical liberals" in a dispute with conservatives. Instead, it's about an executive branch unlawfully attempting to suppress free speech. Hiring a legal team with conservative credentials underlines this point.
Related Resources
- Keeping Your Nonprofit Tax Exempt Status (FindLaw's Incorporation and Legal Structures)
- Federal Education Funding (FindLaw's Education Law)
- School Funding Law (FindLaw's Curriculum Standards and Funding Laws)
