On April 3, 2025, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), represented by Altshuler Berzon LLP and co-counsel Protect Democracy, filed a motion for preliminary injunction against Trump Administration agencies and officials challenging the Administration’s summary termination of $400 million in federal grants and other funds to Columbia University. The motion explains that the Trump administration’s actions violate the First Amendment and other Constitutional provisions and federal law, and seeks an order reinstating the status quo by restoring the terminated funds and preventing the Administration from canceling other federal funding without complying with legal requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Constitution.
The motion argues that the Executive branch’s summary termination of hundreds of millions of dollars and threats to cancel all federal funding unless Columbia complies with a series of sweeping and intrusive demands are causing severe irreparable harm to the unions’ faculty members and others, and that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their claims that the defendants’ actions violate the APA, the constitutional separation of powers, the First Amendment, the Spending Clause, and the Due Process Clause.
The unions filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on March 25, 2025. More information about the complaint is available here.
A copy of the Motion for Preliminary Injunction is available here.
A copy of the Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of the Motion is available here.