(UPDATE: MAY 23) A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to disallow Harvard University from enrolling international students.
The following article is a part of University Business’ ongoing coverage of President Donald J. Trump’s impact on higher education during his second term in office. Click here for the latest updates.
Harvard University filed a suit in federal court on Friday against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s revocation of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification.
“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,” the university’s complaint states, per CNN.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burswiftly sided with Harvard, blocking the Trump administration’s rulings just hours after the suit was filed. Burswiftly also heads a separate lawsuit filed by Harvard against the Trump administration’s efforts to terminate over $2 billion in federal funding.
(UPDATE: May 22) Harvard University will no longer be able to enroll international students, escalating the Ivy League school’s months-long legal feud with the Trump administration.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security terminated the university’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification Thursday afternoon, according to a letter sent to Harvard’s director of immigration serves from Secretary Kristi Noem.
The department stated that Harvard “brazenly refused” to send detailed records of the university’s student visa holders, which it requested last month to investigate any potential illegal and violent activities committed by international students.
“Instead of protecting its students, Harvard has let crime rates skyrocket, enacted racist DEI practices, and accepted boatloads of cash from foreign governments and donors,” the agency wrote.
About 27% of the Ivy League’s student body is made up of international students, per university enrollment data, up from 19.7% in 2010.
Harvard seems prepared to yet again fight the Trump administration in court. “The government’s action is unlawful,” the university wrote in a statement. “We are fully committed to maintaining the ability to host international students and scholars from more than 140 countries and enrich the university. This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission.”
The university had previously sued the federal government for trying to cut billions of dollars in research funding, a move the Trump administration said was meant to stem rising incidents of anti-Semitism on campus.
(UPDATE: May 13) The Trump administration cut another $450 million in funding to Harvard University Tuesday after the school’s president sought common ground but vowed to stick to the institution’s principles amid a dispute over the handling of antisemitism on campus.
Harvard President Alan Garber on Monday sent a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon acknowledging the need to do more to combat antisemitism and other forms of bigotry. “We share common ground on a number of critical issues,” Garber wrote.
However, Garber insisted that the administration’s recent actions, including the freezing of $2.2 billion in grants and contracts and threats to Harvard’s tax-exempt status, encroach on the school’s constitutional freedoms, hamper vital research and undermine its efforts to combat antisemitism and bigotry.
“Harvard will not surrender its core, legally-protected principles out of fear of unfounded retaliation by the federal government,” Garber wrote.
The Education Department’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism responded harshly to Garber, canceling another $450 million in grants and characterizing Harvard’s response to antisemitism as weak.
“Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination,” the task force contended. “There is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus, and by prioritizing appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support.”
(UPDATE: May 6) Education Secretary Linda McMahon is threatening to withhold all federal research funding from Harvard University. It represents the first significant rebuttal to the Ivy League school’s decision to reject the Trump administration’s demands to overhaul school policy and heighten federal oversight. The administration also froze more than $2.2 billion in grants and contracts.
“[T]his letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote to Harvard President Alan Garber.
McMahon listed several reasons why Harvard has made a “mockery of this country’s higher education system.” Aside from its original qualms with its campus safety policies to prevent antisemitism, she also noted its test-optional policies, a remedial math course for undergraduate students and supposed “racial preferencing” in admissions.
While the move will not impact federal Pell Grants or student loan funding, targeting research grant funding could impact over $1 billion a year, CNN reports.
A Harvard spokesperson wrote that McMahon’s threats are yet another attempt to “impose unprecedented and improper control over Harvard University.” “Harvard will also continue to defend against illegal government overreach aimed at stifling research and innovation that make Americans safer and more secure,” the spokesperson wrote.
As Harvard and the federal government fight over the university’s research funding, President Donald Trump and his administration have threatened to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status and demanded “detailed records on Harvard’s foreign student visa holders.”
Harvard rejects Trump’s demands; loses $2.2 billion in federal grants
(April 14) With billions of dollars of funding at risk, Harvard University rejected a list of President Donald Trump’s demands that the administration says serve to combat antisemitism.
“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Harvard’s lawyers wrote in a letter to the administration. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”
Later Monday night, the administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism froze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and an additional $60 million in contracts with Harvard.
“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges—that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws,” the Task Force said. “The disruption of learning that has plagued campuses in recent years is unacceptable. The harassment of Jewish students is intolerable.’
The administration has targeted the funding of Harvard and dozens of other elite colleges and universities for their responses to protests against the war in Gaza. In Harvard’s case, along with a demand to crackdown on antisemitism, it required the university to discontinue diversity, equity and inclusivity initiatives, and more strictly enforce its code of conduct in punishing disruptive students.
Harvard acknowledges that it has made robust efforts to tackle antisemitism over the past year but contends the administration’s latest demands are illegal and violate Harvard’s First Amendment rights.
Harvard President Alan Garber said the Trump administration is demanding the university “’audit’ the viewpoints of our student body, faculty, staff,” in order to stifle those with certain ideological views.
Federal funds given to Harvard and other research institutions anchor some of the most important partnerships in American history, Garber added.
“New frontiers beckon us with the prospect of life-changing advances—from treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and diabetes, to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, quantum science and engineering, and numerous other areas of possibility,” Garber noted on the university’s website.
“For the government to retreat from these partnerships now risks not only the health and well-being of millions of individuals but also the economic security and vitality of our nation.”
In its list of demands, the Trump administration says of Harvard’s federal funding that “an investment is not an entitlement” and accuses the university of failing to shield its scholarship and campus climate from “ideological capture.”
