A federal judge on Monday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration to implement his plan to prevent foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard University.
US district judge Allison Burroughs in Boston issued an injunction that prevented Trump’s administration from implementing his latest bid to limit Harvard’s ability to host international students in the midst of an escalating match that puts the republican president against the prestigious Ivy League school.
The preliminary injunction extends a temporary order issued by the judge on June 5, which prevented the administration from enforcing a proclamation that Trump signed a day earlier quoting national security concerns to justify why Harvard could no longer rely on hosting international students.
The proclamation banned foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard or participate in exchange visits for an initial period of six months and instructed State Secretary Marco Rubio to consider whether they will revoke VISA of international students who are already enrolled in Harvard.
Burroughs wrote that “In its root, this case is about central constitutional rights to be protected: freedom of freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of expression, each of which is a pillar in a functioning democracy and a significant hedge against authoritarianism.”
“Here, the government’s wrongly placed efforts to control a reputable academic institution and Squelch different views seem to be because they are in some cases against this administration’s own views, threatening these rights,” she wrote.
“To make things worse, the government tries to achieve this, at least partly, on the back of international students, with a little thought about the consequences for them or ultimately to our own citizens.”
Nearly 6,800 international students participated in Harvard in the past school year, which amounted to approx. 27% of the student’s population in the prestigious Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school.
Trump signed the proclamation after his administration had already frozen billions of dollars in funding for the oldest and richest US university, threatened Harvard’s tax -free status and launched several studies of the school.
Trump said Friday that his administration could announce an agreement with Harvard “over the next week or so” to solve the White Huss campaign against the university, which has led a legal battle against the administration’s action.
Harvard claims that Trump is repaying against it in violation of his free expression rights under the first change of the US Constitution to refuse to accede to the administration’s demand to control the school’s governance, curriculum and ideology of its faculty and students.
The university has brought two separate litigation before Burroughs tries to free up around $ 2.5 billion in funding and prevent administration from blocking international students’ ability to attend university.
The latter trial was filed after security secretary Christ on May 22 announced that her department immediately revoked Harvard’s students and exchange visiting program certification, which allows it to enroll foreign students.
Noem accused without presenting evidence the University of “promoting violence, anti -Semitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”
Her action was temporarily blocked by Burroughs almost instantly. While the Department of Homeland Security has since switched to challenging Harvard’s certification for a month -long administrative process, Burroughs said during a hearing on May 29 that she was planning to issue an order to maintain the status quo, which she officially did on Friday.
A week after the hearing, Trump signed his proclamation, citing concern for Harvard’s acceptance of foreign money, including from China, and what it said was an inadequate response from the school on his administration’s requirement for foreign students.
His administration has accused Harvard of creating an unsafe environment for Jewish students and letting anti -Semitism party on his campus. Protests over the American Allied Israeli treatment of Palestinians during its war in Gaza have burned the campuses of several universities, including Harvards.
Lawyers have noticed increasing anti -Semitism and Islamophobia in the United States because of the war. The Trump administration has so far announced any action against anti-Arabic and anti-Muslim hatred. Harvard’s own anti -Semitism and Islamophobia -taskforce found widespread fear and bigotry at the university in reports released in late April.
