Harvard is challenging the Trump administration’s decision to prohibit the university from enrolling foreign students, initiating legal action while casting itself as an innocent victim for defying the White House’s demands.
AP reports in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Boston, Harvard said the government’s action violates the First Amendment and will have an “immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”
“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 said in its suit, per the AP report. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
The school said it plans to file for a temporary restraining order to block the Department of Homeland Security from carrying out the move.
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As Breitbart News reported, the Ivy League school’s ability to welcome foreign students has been stopped as the university resists President Donald Trump’s popular and constitutionally mandated policy of ending racial favoritism in government-funded schools.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” said a statement from Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most are graduate students and they come from more than 100 countries.
