Washington (AP) A federal judge on Monday rejected yet another attempt by the Trump administration to prevent foreign students from enrolling at Harvard University, claiming that authorities’ misguided attempts to regulate a respectable university endangered free speech.
In Boston, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs issued an order that allows international students to come to the United States to attend Harvard while the case is pending.
As part of a lobbying campaign to alter the Ivy League school’s governance and principles, President Donald Trump has attempted to stop the university from accepting international students. In addition, administration officials have terminated government contracts, reduced more than $2.6 billion in research funds, and threatened to remove the tax-exempt status of the university that Trump has criticized as a bastion of liberalism.
In May, Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security after the agency revoked the school’s authorization to receive international students and process their visa applications. About 7,000 international students at Harvard would have been forced to move or face the possibility of entering the country illegally as a result of the action.
The university claimed it was unlawful retaliation for turning down the White House’s requests to change Harvard’s rules regarding hiring, admissions, protests on campus, and other matters. Hours after Harvard filed a lawsuit and subsequently issued a first injunction on Friday, Burroughs had put a temporary stop to the proceedings.
The most recent injunction was ordered Monday in reaction to another action taken by Trump, who on June 4 issued a proclamation prohibiting foreign students from entering the United States to attend the university, citing a different legal basis.
Burroughs stated in her ruling that the matter concerns both freedom of speech and freedom of ideas.
These rights are threatened, she said, by the government’s misguided attempts to dominate a respectable academic institution and suppress different points of view, ostensibly because they sometimes conflict with the administration’s own beliefs.
Following Harvard’s rejection of a number of government demands intended to address conservative accusations that the university has become too liberal and fostered anti-Jewish harassment, Trump and the university have been at odds for months.
In a post on Truth Social on Friday, he stated that an agreement with Harvard might be announced within the next week and that the administration has been working with the university to rectify their many irregularities. According to Trump’s post, they have behaved quite appropriately throughout these conversations and seem dedicated to doing the right thing.
In April, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered that Harvard produce a wealth of documents pertaining to any unlawful or dangerous action by international students, bringing the university’s 25% foreign student body into the fray. Although Harvard claims to have complied, Noem said the response was insufficient and terminated Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification on May 22.
Harvard said in its lawsuit that the suspension immediately hurt the school’s ability to compete for the best students in the world. According to the lawsuit, Harvard would not be Harvard without its overseas students.
According to a previous statement by Harvard President Alan Garber, the university has taken action against antisemitism. However, he asserted that notwithstanding federal orders, Harvard will not deviate from its fundamental, legally protected values.
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