Harvard sued and asked for a restraining order less than 24 hours after the Trump administration had said it would block current and future international students from attending the university.
Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Friday, less than 24 hours after the Department of Homeland
Security said it would block international students from attending the nation’s oldest university and one of its most prestigious.
Later Friday morning, at the university’s request, a federal judge in Boston moved swiftly to block implementation of the federal government’s order.
The judge, Allison D. Burroughs issued a temporary restraining order against the federal edict, agreeing that Harvard had shown that its implementation would cause “immediate and irreparable injury” to the university.
The administration action, and Harvard’s response, signified a dramatic escalation of the battle between the administration and Harvard. And the university’s forceful and almost immediate response served as evidence that stopping the flow of international students to Harvard, which draws some of the world’s top scholars, would destabilize Harvard’s very existence.
In a letter to the Harvard community delivered Friday morning, Dr. Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s president, wrote, “We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action,” adding that it “imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.”
The lawsuit, which accused the Trump administration of a “campaign of retribution” against the university followed an announcement on Thursday that Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification had been revoked, halting the university’s ability to enroll international students.
The lawsuit was the second time in a matter of weeks the university had sued the federal government.
In the new lawsuit, the university accused the Trump administration of exerting “clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”
“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,” the lawsuit said. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
Source :The New York Times Company