In the latest escalation of its feud with Harvard University, the Trump administration revoked the school’s ability to enrol foreign students attending the school on visas.
Harvard University is the most prominent academic institution to face the Trump administration’s ire – and the most prominent so far to push back.
Do the government’s reasons for revoking Harvard’s participation in the student visa programme hold up under the law?
References to Harvard’s alleged ideological leanings appear throughout the Trump administration’s letters and statements – possibly problematic for the White House in court, legal experts say.
Harvard argues that the Trump administration’s actions are not about combatting antisemitism or keeping Americans safe.
The Trump administration’s latest move in its conflict with Harvard University was to prevent the university from accepting international students on visas. In response, Harvard filed a lawsuit, which led to the rule being temporarily blocked.
The most well-known academic institution to come under fire from the Trump administration and the most well-known to respond thus far is Harvard University.
A federal judge in Boston will hear arguments on Thursday regarding whether to continue blocking the Trump administration’s policy, a legal battle that is being closely watched by other US universities and the thousands of international students who attend these institutions.
According to attorneys, there are two key issues at stake.
Does the law uphold the government’s justifications for removing Harvard from the student visa program?
And are those justifications valid, or are they merely a ruse to penalize Harvard for speech that the administration finds objectionable and protected by the constitution?
Legal experts concur that if courts discover that the Trump administration singled out Harvard for ideological reasons, it may lose, but the government has taken actions that could help it win, with more complicated and wide-ranging ramifications.
A larger question that hangs over the battle is whether the US government can control who universities can hire, what they can teach, and who can enroll.
Former Department of Justice lawyer and George Washington University Law School associate dean Aram Gavoor stated, “This could be the kind of case that could, on a fast track-basis, flow from the district court to the First Circuit to the US Supreme Court.”.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, is in charge of overseeing the academic visas that foreign students, researchers, and faculty depend on in order to study in the United States.
DHS must certify universities through the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) in order for them to take part. Harvard’s capacity to accommodate foreign researchers and students was severely hampered last week when the government revoked its SEVP certification.
“DHS has a great deal of general authority. It is a certifying body for this program, and decertification can occur on a number of grounds,” Mr. Gavoor stated. Courts also frequently show deference to the agency.
According to him, “there are certain limits to it, though.”.
The First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects free speech for both individuals and businesses and organizations like Harvard, is a potent safeguard that Harvard repeatedly cited in its lawsuit.
Judges may rule against the government if they find that DHS’ justification for removing Harvard’s certification was motivated by ideological disagreements and infringed upon the university’s right to free speech.
Mr. Gavoor stated, “A lot will depend on whether the courts determine whether the First Amendment is implicated here.”.
Legal experts say the Trump administration’s letters and statements contain references to Harvard’s purported ideological inclinations, which could be problematic for the White House in court.
The university was ordered to implement major changes to its operations in a letter dated April 11th, which included hiring a third party “to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership. “,”.
Using Truth Social, President Trump criticized Harvard for “hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots, and ‘birdbrains’.”. According to a different post, the university would no longer be exempt from taxes “if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness’.”.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that Harvard was “hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policies” in a letter dated May 22 when she announced eligibility for student visas. “.”.
Harvard contends that neither protecting Americans nor preventing antisemitism are the goals of the Trump administration’s policies.
According to the school’s lawsuit, the government’s decision to revoke visa certification is “the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”. The government allegedly disregarded the correct procedures for taking action against Harvard and infringed upon its right to due process.
“The administration is clearly targeting Harvard due to the opinions it attributes to Harvard faculty, students, and the university itself,” stated Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
He declared, “It’s right out there, the smoking gun is very smoky indeed.”.
“That doesn’t mean that the federal government can dictate acceptable pedagogy in Harvard’s classrooms,” he said, referring to Harvard’s obligation to embrace federal non-discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, gender, national origin, or other protected classes.
“This concept is supported by decades of legal precedent and a pivotal 1957 US Supreme Court decision,” Mr. Creeley said.
