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Main: President Donald Trump arrives at a swearing in ceremony for Dr. Mehmet Oz to be Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon); Inset top: FILE – Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur listens during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, March 12, 2024, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File); Inset bottom: The Harvard University logo is displayed on a building at the school, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa).
Harvard University is backed by some of the most prominent names in conservative legal circles in its recent lawsuit against the Trump administration over the government’s freezing of billions in federal funds. The famed university’s legal team includes lawyers who clerked for conservative Supreme Court justices, fought against COVID-19 restrictions and the Affordable Care Act, and even investigated Joe Biden.
The nation’s oldest higher education institution filed a 51-page federal complaint Monday seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the federal government, alleging that sudden funding cuts put critical medical, military, artificial intelligence, and other research at severe risk — all in an effort to “gain control of academic decisionmaking at Harvard.”
The complaint cited a demand letter from the administration that required that “Harvard ‘reform and restructur[e]’ its governance to ‘reduc[e] the power’ of certain students, faculty, and administrators,” hire a “third-party to conduct an ‘audit’ of the viewpoints of Harvard’s student body, faculty, and staff,” hire new faculty, and admit new students to achieve “viewpoint diversity” as determined “in the Government’s sole discretion.”
“All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions,” the complaint read.
The complaint’s primary signatory on behalf of the university was attorney Steven P. Lehotsky, founding partner at Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP. Lehotsky was a law clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as well as for Ronald Reagan appointee Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Lehotsky made headlines in 2022 when he and law partner Scott Keller successfully secured a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court blocking the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s mandate for employees of companies with at least 100 employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly for COVID-19.
Keller, another of Harvard’s lawyers, was U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, a former Solicitor General of Texas, and a former law clerk for U.S.. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and embattled Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Keller was also one of the attorneys hired by Fox News to defend a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by voting technology company Dominion related to Fox’s fueling lies about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Another member of Harvard’s legal team is attorney William A. Burck of Quinn Emanuel Urquhardt &. Sullivan, LLP — the attorney who lead the lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act during Barack Obama’s presidency. Burck once served as special counsel and deputy counsel to George W. Bush, and he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York who participated in the prosecution of Martha Stewart. He also represented New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution charges.
Perhaps the most surprising lawyer on Harvard’s bench is Robert Hur, the former special counsel assigned to investigate Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents during his time as vice president, is representing Harvard in the case against the very president who appointed him United States Attorney for the District of Maryland in 2017. Ultimately, Hur’s 2024 report concluded that Biden should not be charged with any crimes, and cautioned that it would be tough to secure a felony conviction against Biden, who jurors would perceive “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Hur served as top aide to Trump Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and as liaison to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Additionally, Hur clerked for Kozinski as well as for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
The Trump administration issued a statement in response to Harvard’s lawsuit in which it said the “gravy train of federal assistance” to institutions like Harvard was coming to an end.
“Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege,” said White House spokesperson Harrison Fields.
Harvard’s recent filing will, at least preliminarily, be assigned to U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee.
You can read the full complaint here.
Law&Crime reached out to Lehotsky, Keller, Burck, and Hur for comment, but did not receive a response.
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