Harvard University on Friday sued the Trump’s administration after the US government blocked the university’s ability to enroll foreign students.
On Thursday, the Trump administration terminated Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, forcing the university’s foreign students, to either transfer or lose their legal status.
The development according to the administration followed the university refusal last month to comply with reforms aimed at combating Anti-Semitism, which included who Harvard can admit or hire, and subjecting its faculty to a government audit.
However, in a complaint filed in a U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, Harvard argued that the administration’s effort to block foreign students from enrollment violates the university’s First Amendment rights and would dramatically alter its ability to operate.
“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 complaint started.
In a letter to the university community on Friday, Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s President said “We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action.
“It imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.”
The lawsuit was the second the university filed against the administration within recent weeks.
Harvard sued the administration last month to recoup over $2 billion in federal research funding that the administration stripped the university of after refusing the reforms
In the complaint, which named Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi among other defendants, Harvard, the US oldest university accuses the government of “clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment right to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called the lawsuit an attempt to “kneecap the President’s constitutionally vested powers.”
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” she said in a Friday statement. “The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our student visa system; no lawsuit, this or any other, is going to change that.”
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that “Harvard should spend their time and resources on creating a safe campus environment.”
“If only Harvard cared this much about ending the scourge of anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist agitators on their campus, they wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with,” Abigail Jackson said.
