The District of Massachusetts granted Harvard and its AAUP Chapter summary judgment on several claims, ruling that the cancellation of various grants violated Title VI and the First Amendment. The opinion is 84 pages and I probably will not get to it tomorrow.
I will flag one thing for now: The court drops a footnote about the confusion and difficulty in complying with the various shadow-docket orders about the proper court for claims challenging grant terminations. He ends the footnote with this:
Given this, however, the Court respectfully submits that it is unhelpful and unnecessary to criticize district courts for “defy[ing]” the Supreme Court when they are working to find the right answer in a rapidly evolving doctrinal landscape, where they must grapple with both existing precedent and interim guidance from the Supreme Court that appears to set that precedent aside without much explanation or consensus.
Earlier today I wrote a small piece of a new article (Law Reviews: Coming soon to a submission box near you) on how the Court’s adoption of “Supreme Court Supremacy” in CASA combines with comments such as Gorsuch’s in APHA to enable and support the Administration’s attacks on lower courts. This footnote is of a piece with U.S. v. Russell, which rejected a suit challenging a standing order in the District of Maryland. The judge listed the various insults administration officials have hurled at district judges, calling the “concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it . . . both unprecedented and unfortunate.” So the Supreme Court and the executive are attacking lower courts, each enabling the other’s attacks.
Update: Some lower-court judges spoke anonymously to NBC News to criticize the Court’s handling of emergency orders, which contributes to the appearance that lower courts do bad work and are simply biased against Trump.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 3, 2025 at 06:13 PM