Harvard University has appeared in federal court, challenging $2.6 billion in funding cuts by the Trump administration.

The Trump administration’s legal case for cutting nearly $3 billion in federal aid to Harvard University was met with skepticism.

Harvard challenges Trump's $2.6 billion research funding cuts in court, arguing the freeze violates First Amendment rights and threatens cancer research and security efforts.

“They’ve realized that they can take a bit of a step further, that they can advance their policy priorities through those levers they have through the state university system,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow who studies higher education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Burroughs, a Boston native, was appointed to the federal bench in 2014 by President Obama. Since then, she's overseen several high-profile cases.

Harvard University was back in court Monday for a major hearing in its funding fight case against the Trump administration, a key step in a battle over restoring more than $2 billion in federal funding for research frozen by the White House this spring.

Hearings in cases over Trump's efforts to deport protesters and pull Harvard's federal funding were both held in a Boston courthouse on July 21.

La Universidad de Harvard compareció el lunes ante un tribunal federal en un caso crucial en su batalla con la administración de Trump, argumentando