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Business Standard
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
Harvard wins reprieve from Trump's ban on foreign students entering US
By David Voreacos, Janet Lorin and Anika Arora Seth Harvard University won a temporary reprieve from President Donald Trump's ban on its international students entering the US, a legal setback for the administration in its high-profile fight with the school. US District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled Thursday that the government can't enforce Trump's proclamation that escalates his feud with the university over foreign students. The judge ruled after Harvard amended a May 23 lawsuit over another US order to stop Harvard from enrolling international students. Burroughs had already blocked that effort. The Boston-based judge granted a temporary restraining order, saying Harvard would face 'immediate and irreparable injury' if the proclamation went into effect. She set a hearing for June 16. In issuing the proclamation Wednesday, Trump said that Harvard's refusal to provide records about international student misconduct poses a national security risk. His executive action blocked Harvard's foreign students and researchers from entering the country. Last month, the administration revoked the school's ability to sponsor their visas. Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said Thursday's ruling 'delays justice and seeks to kneecap the President's constitutionally vested powers.' '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; that fact hasn't changed,' she said in a statement. 'The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our student visa system, and we expect a higher court to vindicate us in this.' Harvard President Alan Garber had urged the judge to act swiftly. 'While the court considers our request, contingency plans are being developed to ensure that international students and scholars can continue to pursue their work at Harvard this summer and through the coming academic year,' said in a statement just after the university amended its lawsuit in Boston federal court. Trump's proclamation intensifies his standoff with the oldest and richest US university, where foreign students make up 27% of the campus population. Harvard has also sued over the US freezing more than $2.6 billion in federal funding. Both lawsuits claim Trump is illegally retaliating against Harvard, violating the school's free speech rights because it failed to adhere to his wishes. Trump's actions are 'part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government in clear retribution for Harvard's 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,' lawyers for the university said in the amended lawsuit. Trump's order claims Harvard is 'no longer a trustworthy steward of international student and exchange visitor programs,' accusing the school of failing to address conduct violations and an increase of 'violent crime rates' on campus. It also criticizes Harvard's researchers for partnering with Chinese colleagues in ways it says could advance Beijing's military modernization effort. The proclamation places a six-month suspension on international students and exchange visitors seeking to do research. It also directs Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review whether the visas of existing foreign nationals at Harvard should be revoked. The US would make an exception for 'any alien whose entry would be in the national interest,' according to the proclamation. The university has said that it has been in regular contact with DHS and supplied the legally required data and additional disciplinary information on international students. Burroughs had already temporarily barred the government from revoking Harvard's participation in its Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which is run by DHS. In Thursday's order, she extended that pause until June 20. 'I Feel Unwelcome' Harvard's undergraduate student body president, Abdullah Shahid Sial, went home to Pakistan after the school year ended. Now, whether he comes back to campus for his junior year is 'totally in the hands of U.S. immigration offices.' 'I think the Trump administration has done a very good job of making international students feel unwelcome,' said Sial, 20. 'I feel unwelcome.' The president has sought to reshape Harvard's policies on a wide range of issues, including admissions and faculty hiring practices, citing the pro-Palestinian protests and incidents of antisemitism that rocked college campuses after Hamas' October 2023 attack on Israel started the war in Gaza. Trump has said he wants to cap Harvard's foreign student enrollment at 15%, revoke its tax-exempt status and cancel its remaining federal contracts. In another action Wednesday against universities, the Trump administration announced that it was asking an agency to revoke the accreditation of Columbia University. The case is Harvard v. US Department of Homeland Security, 25-cv-11472, US District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).
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Business Standard
4 days ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
Harvard asks judge for fast ruling in $2.6 bn Trump funding freeze case
By David Voreacos and Janet Lorin Harvard University lawyers urged a federal judge to rule quickly that the Trump administration's freeze on about $2.6 billion in federal funding is illegal and that it violated the school's free speech and regulatory rights. In a court filing Monday, Harvard argued that the US has not produced enough evidence to show that the administration's action was a legally justified response to address antisemitism and a perceived liberal bias on campus. The school asked US District Judge Allison Burroughs to grant summary judgment, meaning to move more quickly than she might in a typical lawsuit to reinstate Harvard's funding. 'The government's rush to freeze and terminate billions of dollars in current and future federal funding to Harvard for critical research lacks the basic requisites of reasoned decisionmaking,' Harvard's lawyers wrote in the filing in Boston federal court. As the richest and oldest US university, Harvard has become the main target of President Donald Trump's attempts to force schools to crack down on antisemitism, remove perceived political bias and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump also wants to cap Harvard's foreign student enrollment at 15 per cent, revoke its tax-exempt status and cancel its remaining federal contracts. Burroughs has temporarily blocked both the funding freeze and a US bar on letting Harvard enroll international students, which is the subject of a separate lawsuit. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Harvard claims that the US violated the Administrative Procedure Act and its First Amendment rights by seeking to dictate decisions on faculty hiring, academic programs and student admissions. It also claims Trump retaliated against Harvard for refusing his demands to make sweeping changes at the school. The school, which sued the US on April 21 over funding, demanded then that the Justice Department provide 'all formal and informal communications between and among any federal agency employees involved in the decision to freeze grants to and contracts with Harvard.' Those records should 'include directions by White House officials,' attorney Steven Lehotsky wrote. The government provided those records, which aren't publicly available, to Harvard in heavily redacted form. In its filing, Harvard's lawyers wrote that the federal records confirm 'the government's rush to judgment' and that they are 'devoid of any individualized assessments of Harvard's funded projects, the University's efforts to confront antisemitism, or any connection between the two.' Rather, the records make clear that 'the directive to freeze and terminate every dollar of Harvard's research funds came directly from the White House, which dictated the form that such terminations would take and set arbitrary deadlines for particular terminations,' the school's lawyers wrote. 'That blunt-force punishment is the antithesis of reasoned agency decisionmaking.' Burroughs has ordered lawyers on both sides to file legal motions before she holds a July 21 hearing on the matter. The school made similar procedural and free-speech claims in its May 23 lawsuit over the foreign student ban that the US imposed. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shocked the campus a day earlier by immediately revoking Harvard's ability to enroll international students, despite the school participating in a US program for more than 70 years. Noem said the school failed to answer questions about foreign students and discipline. To regain permission, Harvard was given 72 hours to provide information about foreign students, including disciplinary records and video of those engaged in protests. After Harvard sued, Noem's investigators issued a 'notice of intent to withdraw' Harvard from its Student and Exchange Visitor Program ahead of a May 29 hearing. That notice appeared to address Harvard's claim that Noem's revocation failed to follow procedures or let the school fix its problems. Under those procedures, Harvard has 30 days to submit written materials to persuade Noem's department to forgo bouncing it from the program. Harvard is also entitled to administrative appeals if it loses. Harvard and its president, Alan Garber, refuted some of the government's allegations, such as denying it is a partisan institution. He has said the university improved its disciplinary procedures, and efforts to encourage diversity of thought. In a scathing report about antisemitism, Garber apologized for failing 'to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community.' 'The government fails to acknowledge, let alone engage with, the dozens of steps Harvard has taken and committed to take to address antisemitism and bias,' the lawyers wrote in the filing on Monday.
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Business Standard
14-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Harvard expands lawsuit against US after Trump ends $450 mn funding
In its new complaint, Harvard cited several actions taken by the administration since the university's initial lawsuit on April 21 Bloomberg By David Voreacos and Janet Lorin Harvard University expanded its lawsuit Tuesday against the Trump administration for freezing billions of dollars in federal funds, ratcheting up the high-stakes legal battle between the wealthiest US university and the White House. University lawyers revised their lawsuit on the same day the federal Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism said the government terminated $450 million in grants to Harvard. The US earlier froze more than $2.2 billion in funding, citing the university's handling of alleged discrimination on campus. In its new complaint, Harvard cited several actions taken by the administration since the university's initial lawsuit on April 21. It claims federal agencies illegally halted the flow of funds because the university refused to submit to government control over its academic programs. President Donald Trump asserts that Harvard has failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism and fostered a climate of discrimination. As with their earlier complaint, Harvard's lawyers asked a federal judge in Boston to bar the government from enacting the funding freeze and declare that the US violated its First Amendment right to free speech. 'The freezes and terminations will chill Harvard's exercise of its First Amendment rights,' according to the amended lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston. 'Harvard will be unable to make decisions regarding its faculty hiring, academic programs, student admissions, and other core academic matters without fear that those decisions will run afoul of government censors' views on acceptable levels of ideological or viewpoint diversity on campus.' The Education Department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The latest escalation comes amid one of the highest-profile standoffs in Trump's efforts to remake much of the US economic and cultural landscape. The funding cuts at Harvard are already imperiling research projects as well as the broader ecosystem that thrives off their existence and helps drive the Massachusetts economy. The amended complaint makes the same basic claims as the April 21 lawsuit — that a wide range of government agencies violated the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act by abruptly cutting off funding to Harvard. US District Judge Allison Burroughs has set a July 21 hearing in the case. A representative for Harvard referred questions for comment on Tuesday's cuts to the amended complaint. The lawsuit refers to a May 6 letter from the National Institutes of Health that formally terminated $2.2 billion in awards, saying its grants 'no longer effectuate agency priorities' because of 'recent events at Harvard University involving antisemitic action.' That letter cited 'Harvard's ongoing inaction in the face of repeated and severe harassment and targeting of Jewish students.' While NIH will generally let a grant recipient take 'appropriate corrective action' after a suspension, it said 'no corrective action is possible here.' Harvard received similar letters on May 9 from the US Department of Agriculture and on May 12 from the Departments of Energy, Defense, and Housing and Urban Development, according to the complaint. Harvard President Alan Garber has twice publicly rebuked the Trump administration for threatening the school's independence. On Monday, he wrote to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, denying allegations of partisan political bias and warning government 'overreach' threatens key freedoms. On Tuesday, the antisemitism task force hit back. 'Harvard's campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination,' the task force wrote. 'This is not leadership; it is cowardice. And it's not academic freedom; it's institutional disenfranchisement.'
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Business Standard
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
Harvard sues Trump admin for stopping $2.2 bn in grants as fight escalates
By David Voreacos and Janet Lorin Harvard University sued several US government agencies and top officials for freezing billions of dollars in federal funding, significantly ratcheting up a high-stakes showdown with the Trump administration. The Trump administration unlawfully suspended Harvard's funding after it refused to comply with 'unconstitutional demands' to overhaul governance, discipline and hiring policies, as well as diversity programs, lawyers for the university argued in a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Massachusetts. It comes after government has accused the nation's oldest and richest university of failing to combat antisemitism on campus. 'Over the course of the past week, the federal government has taken several actions following Harvard's refusal to comply with its illegal demands,' the university's president Alan Garber said. 'We filed a lawsuit to halt the funding freeze because it is unlawful and beyond the government's authority.' In his statement posted on the university's website, Garber cited the Trump administration's pause on $2.2 billion in federal funding, threats to block an additional $1.1 billion in grants, a crackdown on foreign students, and the possible revocation of Harvard's tax-exempt status. The Trump administration is pushing for sweeping changes at the most elite US universities, and has frozen or is reviewing federal funding to Princeton, Cornell, Northwestern and Columbia universities. At Harvard, the government halted $2.2 billion of multi-year grants to on April 14, claiming the school failed to enforce civil rights laws to protect Jewish students. Harvard's lawsuit claims that the funding freeze violates its First Amendment guarantee of free speech and the Administrative Procedures Act. It asks a judge to bar the US from freezing the funding and declare the government's actions unconstitutional. 'The government has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America's position as a global leader in innovation,' the lawsuit claims. The White House and the Education Department didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump escalated his fight with Harvard after the school refused to bow to his administration's demands. Since threatening its funding, Trump suggested the Internal Revenue Service should tax the university as a 'political entity.' Senior administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have criticized tax breaks given to the school's $53 billion endowment. Government Demands The showdown began last month when the government threatened about $9 billion in federal funding to Harvard. Days later, the administration demanded that Harvard remake its governance, transform admissions and faculty hiring, stop admitting international students hostile to US values and enforce viewpoint diversity. The government also called for scrapping any hiring preferences based on race or national origin, adopting a broad ban on masks and adding oversight for 'biased programs that fuel antisemitism.' Harvard rejected those demands on April 14, saying it 'will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights' and that a private university 'cannot allow itself to be taken over' by the US government. 'The government has only ratcheted up cuts to funding, investigations, and threats that will hurt students from every state in the country and around the world, as well as research that improves the lives of millions of Americans,' the complaint claims. Without the funding, the school said in its complaint that it will be forced to either reduce or halt ongoing research projects and terminate employment contracts with researchers, staff, and administrators, or make other cuts to departments or programs. Campuses across the US were roiled by protests after Hamas, which the US considers a terrorist organization, murdered 1,200 Israelis and took more than 200 hostages in October 2023. Israel's retaliation against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Other university leaders, including Princeton's, have expressed support for Harvard's stance, but they also face pressure from the White House. The administration has already canceled $400 million in federal money to Columbia University and frozen dozens of research contracts at Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern universities. 'All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: allow the government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution's ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions,' Harvard argued in its lawsuit. Harvard named several cabinet secretaries in the lawsuit, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose agency, Health and Human Services, funds the most research, as well as other agencies including the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. As part of its legal team, Harvard has hired two conservative lawyers with connections to the Trump administration - William Burck and Robert Hur. Harvard also hired a lobbying firm, Ballard Partners, where Trump's chief of staff used to be a partner. The school also placed John Manning, a conservative lawyer, as its permanent provost, the second-most powerful leadership role at the university where he will oversee academic policies. The case is President and Fellows of Harvard College v. US Department of Health and Human Services et al, 25-cv-11048, US District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).
