FILE PHOTO: People walk on the Business School campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., April 15, 2025.
Faith Ninivaggi | Reuters
Harvard University on Friday filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the Trump administration’s ban on the private school enrolling international students over its purported tolerance of “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” on campus.
The suit came a day after the Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students under the F-1 visa program at the behest of Secretary Kristi Noem.
DHS said Harvard was barred from enrolling future international students, and that current foreign students enrolled at the school had to leave the school or risk losing their legal status in the United States. The ban affects about 7,000 current visa holders studying 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 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts said.
“Harvard’s certification is essential for each of Harvard’s thousands of international students to lawfully remain in this country while they complete coursework, obtain degrees, and continue critical research,” the suit said.
The lawsuit called the revocation a “blatant violation of the First Amendment” and the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The school also said it was 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.”
DHS on Thursday said it revoked Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification because the Ivy League school’s leadership “has created an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment.”
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