On Withholding Federal Grants to Universities

Keith Whittington interviews Cass Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School, whose scholarly interests include free speech, constitutional law, and administrative law. He recently authored a paper, “Our Money or Your Life!’ Higher Education and the First Amendment,” available here, which explores the First Amendment constraints of federal funding to American universities. Sunstein helps unpack the legal and constitutional questions raised by the Trump administration's strategy of withholding federal grants from schools like Columbia and Harvard to force internal policy reforms. - 5/27/25