As thousands of students from Harvard University and their families meet this morning for the beginning, a legal battle that could affect the future of the school is developing a few miles away in a federal court in Boston.
A federal judge established a hearing on Thursday morning to decide whether to extend an order that blocks the Trump administration to strip Harvard of his ability to register international students.
In an escalation of the recent Trump attacks against Harvard, the National Security Department revoked last week the certification of the student and school exchange program of the school, which carries the state of the almost 7,000 international students of the school to an immediate uncertainty.
Harvard quickly sued to block politics, arguing that students have become “pawns in the growing campaign of reprisals of the Government”, and a federal judge on Friday granted a temporary order that prohibited the Trump for administration to revoke the SEVP SUV certification of the school.
The American district Allison Burroughs, designated by Obama, granted the temporal order at a few hours of Harvard by submitting its demand, writing that the school would probably suffer “immediate and irreparable injuries” if the policy was promulgated. Harvard lawyers have argued that almost all their international students would have to transfer or leave if the Trump administration carries out the revocation.
“With the blow of a pen, the government has tried to erase a quarter of the Harvard student body, international students who contribute significantly to the university and its mission,” said his demand.
Arguing that the actions of the Trump administration are part of a “campaign to force Harvard to deliver their rights of the first amendment,” Harvard claimed that the revocation of the SEVP is illegal because it violates the rights of freedom of expression of the school; that the policy is arbitrary and, therefore, violates the administrative procedure law; and that the policy executes rude about the protections of due process of the school because it was not given the opportunity to respond to the revocation.
Graduation students, the faculty and the family meet in Harvard Yard, on May 28, 2025 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“The surrounding events and the express statements of the defendants make it clear that the Department of National Security took these actions not for any valid reason, but purely as a punishment for Harvard’s speech, their perceived point of view and its refusal to deliver their academic independence or renounce their constitutional rights,” he argued.
“It is the last act of the government in clear retaliation by Harvard that exercises its rights of the first amendment to reject the government’s demands to control governance, curriculum and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students,” said the demand.
DHS officials have said that the revocation was necessary because Harvard could not deliver information about international students, including disciplinary records, as requested by the Trump administration.
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to register foreign students and benefit from their highest registration payments to help place their multimillion -dollar endowments. Harvard had many opportunities to do the right thing. He refused.” The secretary of the DHS, Kristi Noem, said in a statement last week.
Harvard is also fighting the Trump administration attempt to freeze more $ 2.2 billion in subsidies and $ 60 million in school contracts. Harvard filed a separate lawsuit to challenge the freezing of funds in April, and the next hearing in that case is scheduled for July.
Trump has continued to increase the pressure on the school in the last two months, threatening to revoke the state -free state of the school, ordering its administration to cancel contracts with the school and continue to demand information about international students. Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Trump suggested that Harvard should limit the number of international students to 15% of the school’s total student body.
“We have people who want to go to Harvard and other schools, they can’t enter because we have foreign students there. But I want to make sure foreign students are people who can love our country,” Trump said.
