Latest news with #DavidSuper
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Officials Give Harvard 30 Days to Rebut Foreign Student Ban
The Trump administration has given Harvard 30 days to respond with evidence showing why the administration should not make good on its threat to bar it from enrolling international students, according to a notice that was filed in federal court ahead of a hearing on Thursday. A judge had already temporarily stopped the federal government from cutting off international students from Harvard, and the sides were taking part in a hearing on Thursday morning in an Boston courtroom after Harvard asked for an extension. The administration's filing appears to be a legal maneuver to delay, if not change, the ultimate outcome in the case. Any halt to the admission of international students threatens to rock Harvard, where international students make up about a quarter of the student body. The filing appeared to address a procedural claim that the administration had not followed the proper method of notification when it abruptly announced it would bar Harvard from a program that allows it to admit international students, said David Super, an administrative law expert at Georgetown University. 'An obvious violation like this procedural one is going to be a simple way for the court to rule against the government, and the government wanted to remove that,' he said. But the 30-day delay does little to address the core questions in the case, on which the judge may ultimately have to rule. The Trump administration has sought extensive documentation from Harvard, requesting, among other things, coursework for every international student and information on any student visa holder involved in misconduct or illegal activity. Citing Harvard's failure to fully comply, the administration moved last week to revoke its ability to host international students. It also has accused Harvard of fostering a culture of antisemitism, among other allegations. It is now giving Harvard 30 calendar days to provide written documentation and other evidence 'to rebut the alleged grounds for withdrawal.' International students are core to Harvard's efforts to attract global talent, and they make up an especially high share of the university's graduate programs. At the Kennedy School of Government, more than half of students are international. At the Chan School of Public Health, about 40 percent of students are international students.
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Harvard and Trump Lawyers to Face Off in Court in Foreign Student Case
In public statements and social media posts, President Trump has threatened Harvard University financially, calling it a 'threat to democracy' and referring to its professors as 'birdbrains.' Now, Harvard lawyers are trying to use the president's words against him in their legal fight against his administration. On Thursday, Harvard and Trump administration attorneys will make their first in-person arguments in a Boston federal courtroom, in a case involving the administration's attempt to ban the university from enrolling international students. The Trump administration has argued that Harvard has given up the right to host international students on campus, citing what it says are civil rights violations, including allowing antisemitic behavior. The university's president, Alan M. Garber, has acknowledged some problems with antisemitism but points to major steps he has taken to address it. In the courtroom, Harvard's strategy will use the president's statements as evidence that the government is on a political crusade against the school. In briefs filed in the case, lawyers have argued Trump administration officials have unjustly singled out the university for punishment, violating its First Amendment rights. It has included the president's aggressive comments as exhibits in its case. David A. Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, says Harvard's strategy — pointing to the president's posts on his social media network, Truth Social — could work. 'The Truth Social posts prove a deep hostility to Harvard, and Harvard believes they also suggest that hostility is based on Harvard's exercise of its First Amendment activity,' Mr. Super said. 'So these quotes help Harvard prove its particular claims.' At stake is a 70-year-old Harvard tradition of admitting top students from around the globe. Its notable international alumni include Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former president of Liberia; and Masako Owada, the empress of Japan. A visa ban would affect 7,000 students at Harvard. That includes 5,000 current students and another 2,000 in a program that allows students to stay and work for up to three years after they graduate. The ban also affects incoming students who had expected to arrive this summer and fall. Kirsten Weld, a Harvard professor who heads the school's chapter of the American Association of University Professors, called such a ban 'an extinction-level event.' It could also have implications beyond Harvard — further deterring international interest in studying in the United States, already ebbing following efforts by the administration this year aimed at deporting international students. Last week, a day after the administration imposed the ban, it was temporarily blocked by Judge Allison D. Burroughs, who will preside over Thursday's hearing. Lawyers for Harvard are asking Judge Burroughs to extend that order by issuing a preliminary injunction while the case moves through the court system. Justice Department lawyers have not submitted any written arguments in the case. But in revoking Harvard's right to host international students last week, Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said the school had fostered violence and antisemitism and accused it of 'coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.' She also pointed to Harvard's ideology and what she called its propaganda, which she described as 'anti-American.' Jewish students had complained that Harvard had failed to combat antisemitic behavior on campus, including during pro-Palestinian protests that began in 2023. In response, Harvard commissioned an internal task force report, settled legal cases with Jewish students and created new programs to address bias. The basis for Ms. Noem's claims involving collaboration with Chinese Communists were not entirely clear. The ban followed an extended back and forth between Harvard and the federal government. In April, the Trump administration sent a request for information about the school's international students, including the names of students who had been disciplined. Later, it expanded those demands, asking for footage of international students involved in demonstrations. Harvard has said that it made efforts to provide some of the information, though it argued the requests were well outside the normal documentation required about international students. Trump administration officials were unsatisfied, however, and Ms. Noem blamed the university's failure to comply with reporting requirements when she announced the ban. Revoking a university's right to host international students, which is done through a federal system known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, is an extraordinary measure. The government has historically done so in cases involving fraud — such as diploma mills that host would-be immigrants under the guise of providing them an education. In court papers, lawyers for Harvard said the administration bypassed detailed procedures leading to a revocation that are clearly laid out in federal regulations. They also argue that the order last week was part of a 'broader effort to retaliate against Harvard for its refusal to surrender its academic independence.' Even before he was elected to a second term, Mr. Trump had criticized Harvard and other top universities. In a video posted during the campaign, he invoked Harvard while announcing a plan to tax university endowments and use the money to create a free online university called the American Academy. Details of that proposal have not materialized. Ahead of Thursday's hearing, lawyers for Harvard specifically cited four of the president's posts on Truth Social, dated from April 15 to May 2, as evidence that his decision to revoke Harvard's right to host international students was retaliation for the university's failure to acquiesce to the administration's earlier demands. They include a threat that Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status, a claim that Harvard's professors were 'Radical left, idiots and birdbrains,' and an assertion that Harvard was a 'Far Left Institution.' In a statement to reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Trump repeated a demand that Harvard show the administration its list of international students — information the government, which issues visas, keeps in its own database. He also said that the Ivy League should cap the international students it admits to 15 percent, introducing a new spin into the administration's position. Currently, Harvard's student body is about 27 percent international. 'Harvard has got to behave themselves. Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect and all they're doing is getting in deeper and deeper,' Trump told reporters gathered at the White House. Ms. Noem's announcement was the most recent action in a series of administration assaults on Harvard that began this year and came to a head last month, when Harvard refused to go along with a series of administration demands, including a ban on admitting students 'hostile to the American values,' an audit of the political ideology of the student body and faculty to determine 'viewpoint diversity,' and quarterly status updates from the school. Columbia University had acceded to a list of demands when threatened by the Trump administration. When Harvard refused, government officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in federal research contracts and grants with the university. Harvard filed the first of its two lawsuits, also pending before Judge Burroughs, challenging those funding cuts. The government has since announced additional funding cuts. It is not the first time a Trump administration target is using the president's comments to build a case against his government. In May, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell deemed unconstitutional an executive order stripping privileges, including federal building access and security clearance, from the law firm Perkins Coie. In her order siding with the law firm, Judge Howell repeatedly referenced Mr. Trump's statements on Truth Social as evidence that the firm, known for its work for Democratic candidates in voting rights cases, had been a victim of the president's 'ire.'
Bloomberg
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Weekend Law: Transgender Ban & Unorthodox Plea Deal
Constitutional law expert David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, discusses the Supreme Court allowing Trump's transgender military ban. Former federal prosecutor Jimmy Gurule, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, discusses the Los Angeles US Attorney making an unorthodox plea deal. Healthcare attorney Harry Nelson, a partner at Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman, discusses 20 State Attorneys General suing the Department of Health and human Services. June Grasso hosts.
Bloomberg
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Bloomberg Law: SCOTUS Allows Transgender Military Ban
Constitutional law expert David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, discusses the Supreme Court allowing the Trump administration to start discharging transgender servicemembers. Former federal prosecutor Jimmy Gurule, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, discusses the Los Angeles US Attorney making a plea deal with a former sheriff's deputy after he was convicted by a jury. Healthcare attorney Harry Nelson, a partner at Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman, discusses 20 State Attorneys General suing the Department of Health and human Services. June Grasso hosts.
Axios
25-02-2025
- Business
- Axios
Federal workers say firing process is a sloppy mess
The White House's latest moves to purge the civil service came late Tuesday via an executive order and an email blast to workers letting them know they were fired. Why it matters: Legal experts say the moves are likely unlawful, workers complain they were sloppily handled, and the whole process runs the risk of doing long-term damage to critical workings of the federal government. The big picture: There's a standard playbook for how to do hiring, firing and cuts in the federal government, which is more restrictive than in the private sector, in order to protect the civil service from corruption and politicization. Presidents can also go to Congress to authorize cuts and other actions. The Trump administration isn't going that route. Instead, the White House appears to be moving toward the vision laid out in Project 2025, where the president is in total control of the bureaucracy, and can no longer be "thwarted" by "byzantine personnel rules." "This is part of a maximalist view of presidential power," said David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, whose research focuses on administrative law. For the record: "As President Trump has said many times, he had nothing to do with Project 2025," Harrison Fields, White House deputy press secretary, said in an email to Axios. Catch up quick: At around the same time Trump's order was announced, workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Small Business Administration received layoff notices. Workers who were fired appear to be contract workers or "probationary" employees, meaning they were recent hires, usually brought on within the last year, and are more easily let go (though there are rules around that process too). On Wednesday the push intensified, with an email sent to staff at the Office of Personnel Management saying widespread layoffs had begun, the Washington Post reported. By Wednesday evening the administration was hit with another lawsuit, this time from four unions representing federal workers and the AFL-CIO, over the "mass firings of hundreds of thousands of employees." Between the lines: Federal workers tell Axios they were surprised by how sloppy the process was. One employee at the CFPB said they received what was clearly a form letter, but when viewed on their phone, the formatting didn't work. The attachment came through addressed to "[EmployeeFirstName,] [EmployeeLastName,]" instead of their actual name. Wired first reported on this glitch. A worker at the SBA received two different firing emails with attachments, both viewed by Axios, each with a different reason they were being let go. The first one said they were being let go because "you have failed to demonstrate fitness for continued federal employment." The second one hedged on the reason: "[Y]ou are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not fit the Agency's current needs and/or your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the agency." Other SBA workers received firing notices, then were told that was a mistake, and then received another notice that they were being let go, Bloomberg reported. Zoom in: Agency heads were also told in the Tuesday order that for each person hired into their department, they must cut four workers. The process here is very "crudely" done and likely violates federal statutes, Super, the law professor, said: "This is an example of them demonstrably thumbing their nose at the laws of the United States." Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is given enormous power in the White House order, which says hiring decisions should be made in consultation with his task force. What they're saying:"Every action taken by the Trump-Vance administration is fully legal and compliant with federal law," Fields, the deputy press secretary, said in his statement. "Any legal challenge against it is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the will of the American people, who overwhelming elected President Trump to secure the border, revitalize the economy, and restore common-sense policies." How it works: There is a standard procedure for conducting layoffs of the civil service, called reductions in force, or RIFs. The memo does use that language, saying agency heads will be required to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force," consistent with applicable laws. Typically, however, agencies develop a plan and conduct layoffs based on seniority, qualifications and performance ratings. And they're not handled on such a broad, sweeping basis. The CFPB worker who was fired told Axios they'd recently gotten an excellent performance review. RIFs also require that workers get 60 days advance notice of the layoff, as the Wall Street Journal reported. "Employees cannot be fired immediately during a reduction-in-force," according to a message from the National Treasury Employees Union to members Tuesday evening, viewed by Axios. "Agency heads are required to take several procedural steps before acting on the president's directive. And we will be here beside you fighting each step of the way," it said. What to watch: It's likely the firings and the executive order will be challenged in court, adding to the long list of pending cases against the administration. Are you a federal employee with a tip? You can reach Emily Peck confidentially on Signal @emilyrpeck.71.
