Latest news with #NoahFeldman
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Continued court fights could put Harvard in unwinnable position vs Trump
A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday granted Harvard University's emergency request to block, for now, the Trump administration's effort to ban international students from its campus, siding with Harvard in ruling that the university would likely suffer "immediate and irreparable harm" if enforced. The temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs blocks the administration from immediately stripping Harvard of its certification status under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, or SEVP — a program run by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that allows universities to sponsor international students for U.S. visas. Burroughs said in her order that Harvard has demonstrated evidence it "will suffer immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties," prompting her to temporarily block the SEVP revocation. Still, some see the order as a mere Band-Aid, forestalling a larger court fight between Harvard and the Trump administration — and one that Trump critics say could be unfairly weighted against the nation's oldest university. State Department Now Scrutinizing All Visa Holders Associated With Harvard "Ultimately, this is about Trump trying to impose his view of the world on everybody else," Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman said in a radio interview discussing the Trump administration's actions. Read On The Fox News App Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the administration has frozen more than $2 billion in grants and contracts awarded to the university. It is also targeting the university with investigations led by six separate federal agencies. Combined, these actions have created a wide degree of uncertainty at Harvard. The temporary restraining order handed down on Thursday night is also just that — temporary. Though the decision does block Trump from revoking Harvard's SEVP status, it's a near-term fix, designed to allow the merits of the case to be more fully heard. Meanwhile, the administration is almost certain to appeal the case to higher courts, which could be more inclined to side in favor of the administration. And that's just the procedural angle. Judges V Trump: Here Are The Key Court Battles Halting The White House Agenda Should Harvard lose its status for SEVP certification — a certification it has held for some 70 years — the thousands of international students currently enrolled at Harvard would have a very narrow window to either transfer to another U.S. university, or risk losing their student visas within 180 days, experts told Fox News. Some may opt not to take that chance, and transfer to a different school that's less likely to be targeted by the administration — even if it means sacrificing, for certainty, a certain level of prestige. Regardless of how the court rules, these actions create "a chilling effect" for international students at Harvard, Aram Gavoor, an associate dean at George Washington University Law School and a former Justice Department attorney, said in an interview. Students "who would otherwise be attending or applying to Harvard University [could be] less inclined to do so, or to make alternative plans for their education In the U.S.," Gavoor said. Even if the Trump administration loses on the merits of the case, "there's a point to be argued that it may have won as a function of policy," Gavoor said. Meanwhile, any financial fallout the school might see as a result is another matter entirely. Though the uncertainty yielded by Trump's fight against Harvard could prove damaging to the school's priority of maintaining a diverse international student body, or by offering financial aid to students via the federally operated Pell Grant, these actions alone would unlikely to prove financially devastating in the near-term, experts told Fox News. Harvard could simply opt to fill the slots once taken by international students with any number of eager, well-qualified U.S.-based applicants, David Feldman, a professor at William & Mary who focuses on economic issues and higher education, said in an interview. Harvard is one of just a handful of American universities that has a "need-blind" admissions policy for domestic and international students — that is, they do not take into consideration a student's financial need or the aid required in weighing a potential applicant. But because international students in the U.S. typically require more aid than domestic students, replacing their slots with domestic students, in the near-term, would likely have little noticeable impact on the revenue it receives for tuition, fees and housing, he said. "This is all about Harvard, choosing the best group of students possible," Feldman said in an interview. If the administration successfully revokes their SEVP certification, this would effectively just be "constraining them to choose the second-best group," he said. "Harvard could dump the entire 1,500-person entering class, just dump it completely, and look at the next 1,500 [applicants]," Feldman said. "And by all measurables that you and I would look at, it would look just as good." Unlike public schools, which are subject to the vagaries of state budgets, private universities like Harvard often have margins built into their budgets in the form of seed money that allows them to allocate more money towards things they've identified as goals for the year or years ahead. This allows them to operate with more stability as a result — and inoculates them to a larger degree from the administration's financial hits. "Uncertainty is bad for them," Feldman acknowledged. But at the end of the day, he said, "these institutions have the capacity to resist." "They would rather not — they would rather this whole thing go away," Feldman said. But the big takeaway, in his view, is that Harvard "is not defenseless."Original article source: Continued court fights could put Harvard in unwinnable position vs Trump
Fox News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Continued court fights could put Harvard in unwinnable position vs Trump
A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday granted Harvard University's emergency request to block, for now, the Trump administration's effort to ban international students from its campus, siding with Harvard in ruling that the university would likely suffer "immediate and irreparable harm" if enforced. The temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs blocks the administration from immediately stripping Harvard of its certification status under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, or SEVP — a program run by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that allows universities to sponsor international students for U.S. visas. Burroughs said in her order that Harvard has demonstrated evidence it "will suffer immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties," prompting her to temporarily block the SEVP revocation. Still, some see the order as a mere Band-Aid, forestalling a larger court fight between Harvard and the Trump administration — and one that Trump critics say could be unfairly weighted against the nation's oldest university. "Ultimately, this is about Trump trying to impose his view of the world on everybody else," Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman said in a radio interview discussing the Trump administration's actions. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the administration has frozen more than $2 billion in grants and contracts awarded to the university. It is also targeting the university with investigations led by six separate federal agencies. Combined, these actions have created a wide degree of uncertainty at Harvard. The temporary restraining order handed down on Thursday night is also just that — temporary. Though the decision does block Trump from revoking Harvard's SEVP status, it's a near-term fix, designed to allow the merits of the case to be more fully heard. Meanwhile, the administration is almost certain to appeal the case to higher courts, which could be more inclined to side in favor of the administration. And that's just the procedural angle. Should Harvard lose its status for SEVP certification — a certification it has held for some 70 years — the thousands of international students currently enrolled at Harvard would have a very narrow window to either transfer to another U.S. university, or risk losing their student visas within 180 days, experts told Fox News. Some may opt not to take that chance, and transfer to a different school that's less likely to be targeted by the administration — even if it means sacrificing, for certainty, a certain level of prestige. Regardless of how the court rules, these actions create "a chilling effect" for international students at Harvard, Aram Gavoor, an associate dean at George Washington University Law School and a former Justice Department attorney, said in an interview. Students "who would otherwise be attending or applying to Harvard University [could be] less inclined to do so, or to make alternative plans for their education In the U.S.," Gavoor said. Even if the Trump administration loses on the merits of the case, "there's a point to be argued that it may have won as a function of policy," Gavoor said. Meanwhile, any financial fallout the school might see as a result is another matter entirely. Though the uncertainty yielded by Trump's fight against Harvard could prove damaging to the school's priority of maintaining a diverse international student body, or by offering financial aid to students via the federally operated Pell Grant, these actions alone would unlikely to prove financially devastating in the near-term, experts told Fox News. Harvard could simply opt to fill the slots once taken by international students with any number of eager, well-qualified U.S.-based applicants, David Feldman, a professor at William & Mary who focuses on economic issues and higher education, said in an interview. Harvard is one of just a handful of American universities that has a "need-blind" admissions policy for domestic and international students — that is, they do not take into consideration a student's financial need or the aid required in weighing a potential applicant. But because international students in the U.S. typically require more aid than domestic students, replacing their slots with domestic students, in the near-term, would likely have little noticeable impact on the revenue it receives for tuition, fees and housing, he said. "This is all about Harvard, choosing the best group of students possible," Feldman said in an interview. If the administration successfully revokes their SEVP certification, this would effectively just be "constraining them to choose the second-best group," he said. "Harvard could dump the entire 1,500-person entering class, just dump it completely, and look at the next 1,500 [applicants]," Feldman said. "And by all measurables that you and I would look at, it would look just as good." Unlike public schools, which are subject to the vagaries of state budgets, private universities like Harvard often have margins built into their budgets in the form of seed money that allows them to allocate more money towards things they've identified as goals for the year or years ahead. This allows them to operate with more stability as a result — and inoculates them to a larger degree from the administration's financial hits. "Uncertainty is bad for them," Feldman acknowledged. But at the end of the day, he said, "these institutions have the capacity to resist." "They would rather not — they would rather this whole thing go away," Feldman said. But the big takeaway, in his view, is that Harvard "is not defenseless."
Bloomberg
23-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Harvard Is Fighting for More Than Itself
Opinion What's at stake for Harvard is much greater than visas for international students, explains Noah R. Feldman. (Source: Bloomberg)
Gulf Today
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
SC understands the assignment on birthright citizenship
Noah Feldman, Tribune News Service The oral argument before the Supreme Court related to President Donald Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship focused on whether a single district court has the authority to issue a nationwide injunction telling the administration what it can or can't do. The best reading of the justices' questions is that although they are concerned about giving too much power to a single district judge, they are more worried about Trump's contempt for the rule of law. It appears the justices will find a way to allow such orders in at least some circumstances — like Trump's egregious executive action purporting to end birthright citizenship. And ultimately, it's extremely likely they will strike it down as violating the Fourteenth Amendment, probably sometime next year. What made the current case so strange — and the argument so dramatic — is that any rational Department of Justice would have tried to avoid bringing it to court at all. Yet Trump's solicitor general, John Sauer, pressed it on the justices, who held a special oral argument to consider it. Justice Elena Kagan, a solicitor general under former President Barack Obama, bluntly pointed this out, commenting that if she were in Sauer's shoes, she would have tried to keep the case out of the court. The reason not to bring this particular case is that many of the justices have long been concerned about what are called 'universal injunctions,' defined roughly as orders given by a court that cover the whole country. The directives allow someone challenging the legality of an executive action to get a single district court judge to block the action unilaterally. So, if you were the solicitor general and wanted to convince the Supreme Court to abolish the practice, you would bring a case in which the judicial order in question was doubtful and the stakes were low. That would allow the justices to dig deep on the technical questions of whether lower court judges really have that much power and how best to rein them in. The birthright citizenship case is at the opposite extreme. It's obvious as a matter of law that the Fourteenth Amendment grants birthright citizenship. It says so right in the text and precedent going back to 1898 agrees. No justice at the oral argument made any attempt to suggest a different constitutional interpretation. And the stakes are enormous. They matter, of course, to everyone born in the US to non-citizen parents. But they matter even more to the larger question of whether Trump can get away with flouting the law and then dance around court injunctions that tell him to stop. That's what he's been doing on issues from deportation to government funding to the firing of federal employees and beyond. The upshot is that the whole oral argument took place against the backdrop of the justices' worries that Trump might ignore legitimate court orders. Justice Samuel Alito tried to get the court to leave aside the underlying 'merits' question about the Fourteenth Amendment and think only about universal injunctions in general. That was an uphill battle under the circumstances. Trump's lawlessness loomed over the proceedings, and its presence weakened Sauer to the point where it seemed fairly certain that the court would find some way to leave the lower court order in place. Even conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who clearly doesn't care for universal injunctions, asked Sauer, 'How would you get the merits of this case to us promptly?' The implication was that he wants to make sure Trump's order is struck down by the justices quickly, before it does real-world harm. The most likely explanation for Sauer bringing the case despite it being disastrous was that Trump wanted him to. He also probably figured, correctly, that he would be hammered less hard by the justices for attacking universal injunctions than he would be for insisting that the Constitution doesn't guarantee birthright citizenship. The justices have expressed skepticism about universal injunctions in the past. In a perfect world, many, maybe most of them would have preferred to rule that district courts can't ever grant them. But Trump's conduct this term seems to have forced a majority to recognize that courts need tools to stop him from breaking the law and creating situations that can't easily be reversed. That's what has happened in the case of the Venezuelans unlawfully deported to El Salvador.
Bloomberg
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Supreme Court Is Worried About Trump's Lawlessness
It's extremely likely the Supreme Court will strike down President Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship — even if they have to give more power to individual judges, says Harvard Law Professor and Bloomberg Opinion columnist Noah Feldman. (Source: Bloomberg)
