A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s controversial move to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students, a measure the Ivy League institution denounced as an unconstitutional act of political retaliation.
The ruling, issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, came just hours after Harvard filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston, accusing the government of violating its First Amendment rights. The university warned the sanction would have an “immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”
“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,” Harvard’s lawsuit stated. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
The legal complaint centers on a decision announced Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security, which accused Harvard of fostering an “unsafe campus environment” by allegedly enabling “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students. The agency also claimed Harvard had collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party, training members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.
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While the university has promised a response to these accusations at a later time, Harvard President Alan Garber emphasized earlier this month that the school has strengthened its governance and adopted a comprehensive anti-antisemitism strategy. Yet Garber made clear that Harvard would not compromise on “its core, legally-protected principles” in the face of political intimidation.
The government’s abrupt move threw Harvard’s operations into disarray just days before graduation. International students, many of whom manage laboratories, assist professors, teach classes, and compete in athletics, now face a stark choice: transfer to other institutions or risk losing their legal status. Graduate schools like the Kennedy School and Business School, where international students make up nearly half and one-third of the population respectively, are especially vulnerable.
According to the university, the damage would extend far beyond current students. The revocation would bar thousands of incoming international students from attending summer and fall classes and prevent the school from issuing new offers of admission to foreign students for at least two academic years. Federal regulations prohibit decertified schools from reapplying for one year.
The Department of Homeland Security‘s decision followed an April 16 request from Secretary Kristi Noem demanding that Harvard turn over records that could implicate foreign students in violence or protests—data that could then be used to initiate deportation proceedings. Harvard said it responded with “thousands of data points,” but claims Noem failed to clarify why the information was deemed insufficient.
“It makes generalized statements about campus environment and ‘anti-Americanism,’ again without articulating any rational link between those statements and the decision to retaliate against international students,” the lawsuit said.
In her latest demand, Noem gave Harvard 72 hours to submit all records, audio, video, and documentation related to any foreign students involved in protests or activities deemed dangerous. Only then, she said, could the university regain eligibility to host international students.
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Harvard contends that the government’s move violates its own rules, which allow for removing schools from the Student Exchange and Visitor Program only for well-defined administrative failures such as loss of accreditation, substandard facilities, or unqualified staff, not political disagreements.
The crackdown is also seen as part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts across the country. Harvard is already pursuing a separate legal challenge to more than $2 billion in federal funding cuts imposed by the administration.
Former Harvard president and U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers voiced his dismay, warning that the move could alienate future global leaders. “Some small fraction of whom are going to go on to be Prime Ministers of countries who’ve now been turned into enemies of the United States,” he wrote on X. “This is madness.”
As of now, Harvard enrolls approximately 6,800 foreign students from over 100 countries, most of them graduate students, on its Cambridge, Massachusetts campus.
In the words of the university’s legal team: “Even if it regains the ability to host students, future applicants may shy away from applying out of fear of further reprisals from the government.”
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