A judge of the United States has issued a temporary restriction order against an effort to prevent Harvard University from registering foreign students.
Friday's ruling occurs in response to an emergency request presented earlier in the day in the Federal District Court of Boston, Massachusetts.
In that request, Harvard sought immediate relief after the administration of President Donald Trump prevented him from using a federal government system, the student and exchanges visitors program, which is required for the registration of international students.
The American district judge Allison Burroughs agreed with Harvard that the school and its students may suffer damage if the Trump administration decision can go into force. His court order will last approximately two weeks, and established hearing dates on May 27 and 29.
Friday's demand against Trump administration is Harvard's second in less than two months.
The last thing is an answer to a decision on Thursday announced by the Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noem. His department supervises the student and exchange visitors program, and said he is revoking Harvard's privilege of using the system based on his inability to address Trump's administration concerns.
“This administration is responsible for Harvard for promoting violence, anti -Semitism and coordination with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” he wrote on social networks.
Revocation means that Harvard can no longer accept foreign students. Those who are already registered must be transferred to another school.
The measure represents an important escalation in Trump's pressure campaign against Harvard and other American universities. He has accused schools of allowing anti -Semitism to run out, promoting “discriminatory” diversity programs and promoting ideological inclinations.
But in Friday's demand, Harvard described the actions of the Trump administration as a “blatant violation” of the Constitution of the United States and other federal laws.
Destroy of the prestigious Ivy League school to enroll its international students would have an “immediate and devastating effect” on the university and the more than 7,000 visa holders in their student body, he argued.
“With the blow of a pen, the government has tried to erase a quarter of the Harvard student body, international students who contribute significantly to the university and its mission,” the complaint said. “Without his international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
Trump's current battle against higher education dates back to pro-palestinian protests that exploded on American campuses last year, in response to the Israel War in Gaza. Trump made energetic measures against the protests against the war a central piece of his re -election campaign 2024.
While there have been cases of harassment of the participants on both sides of the subject, the organizers of the protest have rejected the statements of feeling anti -Jews generalized. Some Campus protests have even been headed by students and Jewish organizations, including the Jewish voice for peace.
Earlier this year, the working groups in Harvard himself issued two reports, warning of the instances of anti-Arab and anti-musulman bias, as well as anti-Semitism.
Harvard has said he is working to address these concerns. However, in April, Harvard became the last school to receive a list of Trump administration demands.
The list included reforming their hiring and admission practices, refusing to admit students considered “hostile to US values and institutions, eliminate diversity programs and audit academic programs and centers, including several related to the Middle East.
Harvard rejected the demands and immediately faced a freezing of $ 2.2 billion in subsidies of several years and $ 60 million in contracts of several years. Since then, several federal agencies have frozen dozens of millions of dollars in subsidies to Harvard.
The University responded to Trump's funds with a lawsuit in April, saying that the administration was violating the first amendment of the United States Constitution with its “arbitrary and capricious” cuts.
Trump has also floated revoking Harvard's tax state, and in April, Noem sent a letter to Harvard threatening for the first time with revoking his approval of the Visitors and Exchange Program if the administrators did not send information about the “illegal and violent activities of foreign students.”
At the end of April, Harvard said he had provided all the legally required information, without providing more details.
'Irreparable damage'
Friday's demand seeks an immediate relief from the Trump administration decision to desertify Harvard's ability to register foreign students, citing “irreparable damage inflicted by this action without law.”
In response to the complaint, the White House spokesman, Abigail Jackson, accused the school of doing very little to address the concerns of the Trump administration.
“If Harvard worried so much to end the scourge of anti -American, anti -Semitic and proterrorist agitators on their campus, they would not be in this situation to start,” Jackson said.
“Harvard should spend his time and resources in the creation of a safe campus environment instead of presenting frivolous demands,” he added.
In a letter to the Harvard community, the president of the school, Alan Garber, framed Trump's attack against Harvard's foreign student body as part of “a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to deliver our academic independence.”
Garber described desertification as evidence of the “illegal statement of control of the federal government about our curriculum, our faculty and our student body.”
In his complaint, Harvard said desertification has launched “innumerable” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories in disorder.
Harvard enrolled almost 6,800 international students in their current school year, equal to 27 percent of their total registration.
On Thursday, Noem also said that Harvard could avoid movement if I gave more information about foreign students, including the video or audio of their protest activity in the last five years.
Harvard has maintained that he has already met the legal requirements in his revelations.
