May 23 (UPI) — A federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday issued an injunction that blocks President Donald Trump‘s administration from stopping Harvard University’s enrollment of international students.
The Trump administration may not proceed with an order that blocks Harvard from using the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Massachusetts Allison D. Burroughs said in her written ruling.
Such an order would cause Harvard to “sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties,” Burroughs wrote.
On Thursday, the Trump administration blocked Harvard from using the SEVP process to enroll foreign students, because of the school’s “refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students.”
Harvard filed a lawsuit, naming the Justice Department, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others as defendants, seeking to block the move.
“This revocation is a blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. 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 lawsuit contends.
The university contends the administration’s move would negatively affect more than 7,000 current students.
“For more than 70 years, Harvard University has been certified by the federal government to enroll international students under the F-1 visa program, and it has long been designated as an exchange program sponsor to host J-1 nonimmigrants. Harvard has, over this time, developed programs and degrees tailored to its international students, invested millions to recruit the most talented such students, and integrated its international students into all aspects of the Harvard community,” the school said in its application for an injunction.
This week’s news is the latest chapter in a back-and-forth saga between the Trump administration and the post-secondary institution.
Last month, the federal government said it would withhold some $2 billion in funding. Earlier this month, the government blocked further grants, accusing Harvard of “engaging in a systemic pattern of violating federal law.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the school is resisting what the administration calls “common-sense reforms.”
Earlier, the school took to social media to state its views on the matter. On Twitter, it posted, “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
Later, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also used the same social-media app to criticize the administration’s moves. “America cannot long remain free, nor first among nations, if it becomes the kind of place where universities are dismantled because they don’t align politically with the current head of the government,” he said.