The lawsuit sets up a legal showdown between America’s most prominent university and the president of the United States, who has been on an escalating campaign to reorder elite higher education.

Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration claiming that its freezing of federal grants worth billions of dollars is unlawful. Its president, Alan M Garber, announced the action on Monday in a letter to the university community which said the $2bn funding freeze would hamper critical disease research.

Harvard University sued the Trump administration Monday in a new escalation of the fight over institutional oversight, independence and federal funding for the Ivy League school.