BOSTON, April 22, (AP): Harvard University announced Monday that it has filed suit to halt a federal freeze on more than $2.2 billion in grants after the institution said it would defy the Trump administration’s demands to limit activism on campus. In an April 11 letter to Harvard, the Trump administration had called for broad government and leadership reforms at the university and changes to its admissions policies.

It also demanded the university audit views of diversity on campus and stop recognizing some student clubs. The administration has argued universities allowed antisemitism to go unchecked at campus protests last year. Harvard President Alan Garber said the university would not bend to the demands. Hours later, the government froze billions of dollars in federal funding.

"The Government has not - and cannot - identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation,” said the lawsuit, filed in Boston federal court.

"Nor has the Government acknowledged the significant consequences that the indefinite freeze of billions of dollars in federal research funding will have on Harvard’s research programs, the beneficiaries of that research, and the national interest in furthering American innovation and progress,” it added. Harvard's suit called the funding freeze "arbitrary and capricious,” saying it violated its First Amendment rights and the statutory provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Within hours, the White House lashed back. "The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end," White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in an email Monday. "Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege.” For the Trump administration, Harvard presents the first major hurdle in its attempt to force change at universities that Republicans say have become hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism.