A federal judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of a White House order to bar current and future international students from attending Harvard University. Around a quarter of Harvard’s students hail from foreign nations.
The Department of Homeland Security had announced the ban on Thursday, and on Friday morning Harvard sued the Trump administration to stop the move. The Boston judge, Allison D. Burroughs, agreed with Harvard that implementation would cause the university “immediate and irreparable injury.”
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The White House says that Harvard has failed to clamp down on campus antisemitism. The university, in the lawsuit, said that it was working to comply with a list of demands sent in April by the administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Johnson, responding to the legal challenge, said in a statement that “Harvard should spend their time and resources on creating a safe campus environment instead of filing frivolous lawsuits.”
Trump’s second term has been a challenging time for American universities. Congress is considering a tax on university endowments as part of a GOP-backed spending bill. If enacted, the tax would cost Harvard hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
