President Donald Trump’s campaign to pressure elite universities into making a wide range of policy changes met its first major resistance when Harvard University sued the US government for freezing billions of dollars in federal funding.

Harvard’s lawyers suggest the administration was sloppy when it froze billions in federal funding. A mundane but crucial law is essential to the university’s case against the government.

After weeks of higher education playing defense against an aggressive Trump administration, Harvard University is now taking point on fighting back. The university — the oldest in America and