BOSTON - A federal judge on Sept 3 ruled US President Donald Trump's administration unlawfully terminated about US$2.2 billion (S$2.83 billion) in grants awarded to Harvard University and can no longer cut off

research funding to the prestigious Ivy League school.

The decision by US District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston marked a major legal victory for Harvard as it seeks to cut a deal that could bring an end to the White House's multi-front conflict with the nation's oldest and richest university.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school became a central focus of the administration's broad campaign to leverage federal funding to force change at US universities, which Mr Trump says are gripped by antisemitic and "radical left" ideologies.

Three other Ivy League schools stuck deals with the administration, including Columbia University, which in July agreed to pay US$220 million to restore federal research money that had been nixed because of allegations the university allowed antisemitism to fester on campus.

As with Columbia, the Trump administration took actions against Harvard related to the pro-Palestinian protest movement that roiled its campus and other universities in the wake of the Oct 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and

Israel's war in Gaza.

Mr Trump during an Aug 26 Cabinet meeting demanded Harvard pay "nothing less than US$500 million" as part of a settlement. "They’ve been very bad," he told Education Secretary Linda McMahon. "Don't negotiate."

Among the earliest actions the administration took against Harvard was the cancellation of hundreds of grants awarded to researchers on the g...