Harvard University is suing the Trump administration after it blocked the college’s ability to enroll new international students.
In the latest development in the feud between Harvard and the federal government, the Ivy League school filed a lawsuit in a Massachusetts court on Friday in a bid to stop the administration’s “arbitrary, capricious, unlawful, and unconstitutional” actions.
On Friday, a federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the federal government from implementing the administration’s directive. District Judge Allison Burroughs said Harvard had shown that allowing the administration’s policy to take effect would have caused “immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Burroughs’ temporary restraining order allows Harvard to maintain its current process for enrolling international students ahead of another hearing scheduled for May 27.
In its complaint, Harvard slammed the administration’s action as “a blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday that Harvard will lose its ability to enroll foreign students—and that existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status—in what was a major escalation in the administration’s battle with the oldest university in America.
Noem said Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification was revoked because the administration is holding the university accountable for “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”
The DHS also claims Harvard’s leadership has created an “unsafe” campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to intimidate Jewish students amid ongoing protests on Israel’s war in Gaza.
Harvard said in their lawsuit that the government’s move to “abruptly” revoke their SEVP certification will cause “immediate and devastating” problems for more than 7,000 visa holders currently at Harvard.
“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,” the document said. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
Lawrence Summers, Harvard’s president emeritus and former treasury secretary, urged the university to push back against what he describes as the “tyranny” of the Trump administration.
“Harvard has a clear necessity right now: resist and reform, because this is the stuff of tyranny,” Summers said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “And if an institution like Harvard—with a $52 billion endowment and a staggering alumni network—can’t resist these kinds of movements toward tyranny, I don’t know what other American institution can.”
He also condemned the administration’s apparent willingness to “simply throw 6,000 students” out and deny thousands more abroad who have “dreamed” of studying at Harvard the chance to do so.
“That is not the way we do things in a democratic country like the United States,” Summers said. “If I had been a member of an administration where such unlawful orders came from the White House, I would have resigned immediately.”
Summers warned that targeting international students at Harvard creates a dangerous message.
“We are going to be sending a symbol, a signal to the world that we are no more committed to what is free than the nations we label as our adversaries,” Summers said. “And that would just be an incredible tragedy.”
The Trump administration has already frozen more than $2 billion in federal funding and suspended $2.7 million in DHS grants after Harvard refused to comply with demands to address alleged antisemitism on campus.
In a previous statement, Harvard said it remains “fully committed” to maintaining its ability to host international students and scholars, who “enrich the University—and this nation—immeasurably.”
