A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to ban foreign students from attending Harvard within hours of the university filing its lawsuit Friday.
Harvard is becoming the litmus test of how far the Trump administration will go to try taking down colleges and universities it considers to have liberal biases.
The swift decision from Judge Allison D. Burroughs is another blow to President Trump’s efforts to cow the elite college.
The temporary restraining order will remain in effect at least until an upcoming status hearing on the case.
Burroughs agreed with Harvard that letting the ban go into effect while the case is litigated could cause the university “immediate and irreparable injury.”
Harvard said that the foreign student ban was retaliation from the Trump administration for opposing its efforts to assert control over elite universities.
“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement.
On Thursday, the Trump administration barred Harvard’s ability to enroll international students and said those currently enrolled should transfer to another school or leave the U.S.
- The administration requested that Harvard’s international student records be provided within 72 hours.
- Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration’s actions toward Harvard should serve as a “warning to every other university to get your act together.”
- She said the university was being held “accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”
@Axios
