Harvard sues Trump administration for blocking foreign student enrolment

(BBC News) Harvard is suing the Trump administration after it revoked the university’s ability to enrol international students, escalating a dispute between the White House and one of America’s most prestigious institutions.

In the suit filed in Boston, the university called the administration’s actions a “blatant violation” of the law.

It comes a day after officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said they would be revoking Harvard’s access to student visa programmes.

The Trump administration says Harvard has not done enough to fight antisemitism and change its hiring and admissions practices – allegations that the university has strongly denied.

There are around 6,800 international students at Harvard, who make up more than 27% of its enrolments this year.

“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,” Harvard argued in the lawsuit.

The university is asking for a court order to halt a move the DHS made on Thursday to revoke Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification – the mechanism by which it is allowed to enrol foreign students.

“We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a letter.

“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body,” he wrote.

The Trump administration has taken aim at Harvard and other elite universities, not only arguing that they should do more to clamp down on pro-Palestinian activists but also claiming they discriminate against conservative viewpoints.

The Trump administration has launched investigations into dozens of universities across the countries and wrung concessions from other major US institutions like Columbia University in New York.

In April, the White House froze $2.2bn (£1.7bn) in federal funding to Harvard, and Trump has threated to remove the university’s tax-exempt status, a standard designation for US educational institutions.

The funding freeze prompted an earlier Harvard lawsuit, also asking the courts to stop the administration’s actions.

Harvard, a member of America’s elite Ivy League class of universities, is located just outside Boston in Cambridge, Massachusetts.