Canceling Harvard biological threat grant poses national security risk, court filing says

Canceling a $12 million grant for biological threat research at Harvard University could endanger U.S. national security, a Defense Department official warned the Trump administration, according to court filings made public Monday.

The disclosure, reported Monday by CNN, is part of Harvard's lawsuit challenging what it claims was an unlawful and politically motivated freeze of over $2.4 billion in federal research funding by the Trump White House. The funding freeze affected more than 950 active research projects.

An official from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said in internal documents that “Harvard is currently the top performing team on the … program,” which supports the Pentagon in tracking biological threats. The official added that “inadequate knowledge of the biological threat landscape poses grave and immediate harm to national security.”

Despite these warnings, the administration terminated the grant and broader funding without justification, Harvard's legal team argued.

The government "rushed to terminate Harvard's funding… solely to inflict maximum punishment upon Harvard,” the filing stated, adding that agencies received direct orders from the White House to cancel grants with little to no review or due process.

The cuts included not just the DARPA project, but also major public health initiatives such as an $88 million pediatric HIV/AIDS study, a $7 million breast cancer prevention grant, and $10 million in antibiotic resistance research.

Harvard Vice Provost for Research John Shaw warned in a sworn statement that the sudden loss of funding would leave sensitive equipment unused, spoil perishable samples, and threaten long-running scientific progress. He emphasized that the university could not offset the loss, even with its large endowment.

Harvard's attorneys also challenged the justification for the funding freeze, stating that agencies failed to properly investigate allegations of antisemitism cited as a basis for the cuts. Internal records, the university said, show the White House directed multiple agencies to use identical language to terminate Harvard's grants without individual review or legal basis.