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.

A federal judge on Monday appeared skeptical of the federal government’s justification for freezing nearly $3 billion in research funding to Harvard, as lawyers for the two parties asked for a speedy decision in a high-stakes case that could determine the future of Harvard’s research enterprise.