American Association of University Professors v. United States Department of Justice

Protect Democracy is challenging the Trump administration’s unlawful termination of $400 million in federal funding for crucial public health research to force Columbia University to surrender its academic independence. 

The lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration violates the First Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act, separation of powers, and other constitutional provisions by using funding cuts as a cudgel to coerce a private institution to adopt restrictive speech codes and allow government control over teaching and learning.  

“Columbia is the testing ground for the Trump administration’s tactic to force universities to yield to its control,” said Orion Danjuma, lead counsel for the case. “We are bringing this lawsuit to protect higher education from unlawful government censorship and political repression.”

Plaintiffs

The plaintiffs are unions representing members of Columbia University’s faculty in both the humanities and sciences, many of whose vital public health research grant funding was improperly canceled. They are:

• American Association of University Professors (AAUP) 
• American Federation of Teachers (AFT) 

Background

The plaintiffs allege that Columbia is in the crosshairs because of the Trump administration’s disagreement with the perceived political views of students and faculty at the university. The First Amendment prohibits the government’s use of threats and coercion to control the thought, association, scholarship, and expression of faculty and students on a private university campus.

The complaint further alleges that although the Trump administration purports to be enforcing Title VI—the anti-discrimination law covering institutions that receive federal funds—its disregard for the statute’s requirements belie that claim. Title VI requires formal procedures precisely because Congress recognized that in a system where universities depend on federal funds, letting the government withhold funding cavalierly would give the federal government dangerously broad power to undermine the academic freedoms protected by the Constitution. The Trump administration’s circumvention of Title VI to withhold federal funds violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the separation of powers, and other constitutional provisions.

The lawsuit asks the court to intervene to:

• Immediately reinstate all grants and contracts with Columbia that the Trump administration announced were terminated on March 7 
• Stop the Trump administration from terminating Columbia’s grants and contracts in the future except pursuant to the processes required by Title VI
• Prevent the Trump administration from enforcing its demands in its March 13 letter as a precondition for receiving any benefit or avoiding any sanction

Case Documents

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Trump’s Cuts to Columbia Were a ‘Gun to the Head,’ Faculty Lawsuit Says

March 25, 2025

The Trump administration’s cancellation of $400 million in aid violates the Constitution, a teachers’ union and a faculty group argue in a new suit.

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