President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to strip Harvard of its ability to enroll international students — an effort blocked by a federal judge on Friday, just hours after the university filed a lawsuit claiming Trump was violating its First Amendment rights.
On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rescinded Harvard’s access to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a government database of international students attending universities in the United States. The students’ visas weren’t canceled, but DHS’s revocation of Harvard’s SEVIS certification could, in theory, make nearly 6,800 international students enrolled at Harvard deportable immediately.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” DHS secretary Kristi Noem said on Thursday. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments. Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused.”
A month earlier, DHS demanded that Harvard turn over information on its international students, including their “known illegal activity,” “known dangerous or violent activity,” “known threats to other students or university personnel,” and “known deprivation of rights of other classmates or university personnel.” The department also requested information on any disciplinary action that had been taken against international students who participated in protests. DHS threatened to rescind Harvard’s SEVIS certification if the university didn’t turn over student records by April 30th.
Since taking office, Trump has used allegations of antisemitism at universities across the country to retaliate against students involved in campus protests against the war on Gaza — and against the universities themselves, which the administration claims haven’t done enough to quell antisemitism on their campuses. In addition to pulling billions of dollars in federal funding, the administration has also had Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest several students over their pro-Palestine activism. Some of these students, like Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, are green card holders whom ICE has accused of engaging in behavior that is contrary to the US’s foreign policy interests. Others are international students whose visas were revoked by the State Department, thus making them deportable.
Instead of targeting individual students at Harvard, the Trump administration is going after the university’s ability to enroll international students altogether. Unlike Columbia, which capitulated to a list of Trump’s demands, Harvard has generally refused to comply with the administration’s requests that it hand over data on its international students; “audit” its academic programs, as well as students’ and faculty’s political views; and change its governance structure and hiring practices.
Harvard sued the administration on Friday. In a complaint filed in Massachusetts federal court, the university’s lawyers called DHS’s revocation of its SEVIS certification a “blatant violation of the First Amendment.”
“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 complaint alleges. “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.”
Moreover, the suit claims, revoking Harvard’s SEVIS status puts students in an impossible position. “Termination of SEVIS records presents student visa holders whose school loses its certification with two bad choices,” the complaint claims: transferring immediately, or leaving the country.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked DHS’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s SEVIS certification. The university’s international students are safe — for now.
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