Harvard sues Trump administration for blocking enrollment of foreign students, calling it a ‘blatant violation’ of US constitution
Harvard University has sued the Trump administration over Donald Trump’s decision to revoke the Ivy League school’s ability to enroll international students.
Reuters reports that in a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Harvard called the revocation a “blatant violation” of the US constitution’s first amendment and other federal laws.
It also said the revocation had an “immediate and devastating effect” on the university and more than 7,000 visa holders.
The administration’s severe escalation in its weeks-long showdown with Harvard would force more than 6,000 international students currently enrolled there to transfer to other universities or lose their legal status, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
My colleague Alice Speri has more:
Key events
Here’s more from the university’s president Alan Garber’s letter today to the Harvard community:
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.
We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action. It imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities across the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.
You can read the letter in full here via the Harvard Crimson student newspaper.
Per Michael’s report, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said yesterday that Harvard could have the “opportunity” to restore its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification by turning over within 72 hours a raft of records about international students, including video or audio of their protest activity over the past five years.
Reuters reports that in a letter to Harvard, which was attached to the complaint, Noem said the information was needed because the university had “created a hostile learning environment for Jewish students due to Harvard’s failure to condemn antisemitism”.
In a letter to the Harvard community today, the university’s president Alan Garber said Harvard had in fact already responded to those requests for information. He wrote:
The government has claimed that its destructive action is based on Harvard’s failure to comply with requests for information from the US Department of Homeland Security. In fact, Harvard did respond to the Department’s requests as required by law.
Michael Sainato
Here is an extract from my colleage Michael Sainato’s story on Harvard University suing the Trump administration over its abrupt ban yesterday on enrolling foreign students.
Harvard announced this morning that it was challenging the Trump administration’s decision to bar the Ivy League school from enrolling foreign students, calling it unconstitutional retaliation for the school previously defying the White House’s political demands.
The institution added that it plans to file for a temporary restraining order to block the Department of Homeland Security from carrying out the move.
The dramatic developments at Harvard came a week before many students at Harvard are set to graduate.
The Harvard Crimson student newspaper reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) gave Harvard 72 hours to turn over all documents on all international students’ disciplinary records and paper, audio, or video records on protest activity over the past five years in order to have the “opportunity” to have its eligibility to enroll foreign students reinstated.
“The government’s action is unlawful,” said a statement from Harvard on the DHS action yesterday. “This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission.”
Meanwhile overseas governments expressed alarm at the Trump administration’s actions against Harvard as part of its latest assault on elite higher education in the US.
Prior to Harvard filing suit, the Chinese government early on Friday said the move to block foreign students from the school and oblige current ones to leave would only hurt the international standing of the US. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology extended an open invitation to Harvard international students and those accepted in response to the action against Harvard.
Former German health minister and alumnus of Harvard Karl Lauterbach called the action against Harvard “research policy suicide”. Germany’s research minister Dorothee Baer had also, before Harvard sued, urged the Trump administration to reverse its decision, calling it “fatal”.
Alice Speri
My colleague Alice Speri reports that Harvard, for now the only university barred from hosting international students, anticipated such a move from the Trump administration.
Last month, the university told admitted foreign students that they could simultaneously accept offers at both Harvard and at universities abroad – something it had never allowed before. In an email, admissions officials cited “recent events here in the United States and at Harvard” and recognised that foreign students may want a “backup plan”.
But Harvard’s current and prospective international students are not the only ones whose education in the US is on the line. Advocates had already warned of dropping enrollment in light of the recent visa revocations as well as the targeting of some pro-Palestinian students for detention and deportation. Those only add to pre-existing bureaucratic obstacles, including rising visa denial rates – from 15% a decade ago to 41% last year – and slow visa processing.
A full accounting of the impact of Trump’s policies won’t be possible until the fall, when universities are required to report their matriculation data. But a global survey of universities published earlier this month shows some early signs, including graduate student enrollment that dropped 13% this spring, while a separate analysis of student visas showed a 14% drop in the number of visas issued so far this year.
Those trends will only be compounded by billions in funding cuts that have already destabilised research institutions and risk sending talented students elsewhere, analysts warn.
“It certainly adds to the stress of a prospective or current international student who, in addition to worrying about immigration policy, has to worry about whether they will have uninterrupted funding if they’re doing a PhD,” said Julia Kent, vice-president, best practices and strategic initiatives, at the Council of Graduate Schools, a group promoting graduate education and research. She noted that some foreign students were so anxious about the administration’s campaign against foreign students that they feared driving their cars.
It’s creating a climate of chaos and uncertainty.
So far, universities have attempted to mitigate the impact of Trump’s policies, discouraging foreign students from traveling abroad during breaks and offering to connect them with immigration attorneys. But that’s not much in the face of an administration willing to go to unprecedented lengths in its effort to submit universities to its will.
‘Harvard is not Harvard without its international students,’ university writes in legal complaint
Reuters has more from Harvard’s complaint against the Trump administration’s move to block its ability to enrol international students.
In its complaint Harvard said the revocation would force it to retract admissions for thousands of people, and has thrown “countless” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories into disarray, just a few days before graduation.
“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the 389-year-old school said.
Let’s recap quickly on how we got here.
The latest decision from the homeland security department to block Harvard’s ability to enrol foreign students and the university’s subsequent (and second) lawsuit against the Trump administration comes amid escalating tensions between federal officials and Harvard over the administration’s claims that the university has implemented inadequate responses to antisemitism on its campus – and Harvard’s refusal to capitulate to Donald Trump’s political demands.
The Trump administration terminated a further $450m in grants to the university earlier this month, following its cancellation of $2.2bn in federal funding in April over which Harvard first sued the administration. It is the first, and so far only, university to do so.
A Trump-appointed antisemitism taskforce has pointed to “just how radical Harvard has become” as nationwide anti-war protesters – including students – demonstrated against Israel’s military assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 53,000 Palestinian people in the last 18 months.
The Trump administration has also ordered the university to dismantle its diversity, equity and inclusion programming, restrict student protests and disclose admission details to federal officials.
Harvard refused to bow to those demands, with its president, Alan Garber, saying in April that “no government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue”. He went on:
The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights … The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government. It violates Harvard’s first amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI. And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production and dissemination of knowledge.
An extract from Harvard’s complaint reads:
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.
It 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.
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem yesterday ordered the termination of Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effective with the 2025-2026 academic year, accusing the university of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.
Harvard sues Trump administration for blocking enrollment of foreign students, calling it a ‘blatant violation’ of US constitution
Harvard University has sued the Trump administration over Donald Trump’s decision to revoke the Ivy League school’s ability to enroll international students.
Reuters reports that in a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Harvard called the revocation a “blatant violation” of the US constitution’s first amendment and other federal laws.
It also said the revocation had an “immediate and devastating effect” on the university and more than 7,000 visa holders.
The administration’s severe escalation in its weeks-long showdown with Harvard would force more than 6,000 international students currently enrolled there to transfer to other universities or lose their legal status, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
My colleague Alice Speri has more:
Trump administration accuses Columbia University of violating civil rights law with ‘hostile environment’ for Jewish students – ABC
The Trump administration has accused Columbia University of violating civil rights law with a “hostile environment” for Jewish students, ABC reports.
Columbia was cited for violating federal civil rights law by allegedly “acting with deliberate indifference towards student-on-student harassment of Jewish students” since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights said.
It comes a day after an announcement that the government would revoke Harvard University’s eligibility to enroll international students, marking the most severe escalation yet in its weeks-long showdown with the university.
Per ABC’s report:
HHS alleged that Columbia violated Title VI, which prohibits those receiving federal financial assistance from discriminating in its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, or national origin — including discrimination against individuals based on their actual or perceived Israeli or Jewish identity or ancestry.
The notice, both from HHS and the Department of Education, “articulates extensive factual findings that span a period of over 19 months in which the University continually failed to protect Jewish students,” the government said in its announcement. “The findings are based on information and documents obtained during the investigation, including witness interviews; examination of written policies and procedures; reliable media reports that contemporaneously capture anti-Semitic incidents and events at Columbia University; and reports from Columbia University’s own Task Force on Antisemitism.”
“The findings carefully document the hostile environment Jewish students at Columbia University have had to endure for over 19 months, disrupting their education, safety, and well-being,” said Anthony Archeval, Acting Director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS. “We encourage Columbia University to work with us to come to an agreement that reflects meaningful changes that will truly protect Jewish students.
The government said that Columbia University failed to take several actions, including failing to establish effective reporting mechanisms for antisemitism until the summer of 2024, failure to abide by its own policies and procedures when responding to Jewish students’ complaints as well as governing misconduct against Jewish students and not investigating or punishing vandalism in its classrooms.
“We understand this finding is part of our ongoing discussions with the government. Columbia is deeply committed to combatting antisemitism and all forms of harassment and discrimination on our campus,” Columbia University said in a statement of Friday morning. “We take these issues seriously and will work with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education to address them.”
It follows the cancellation of $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia in March because of the Trump administration allegations of the college’s failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.
The university later yielded to a series of changes demanded by the administration, including setting up a new disciplinary committee and initiating investigations into students critical of Israel and its war in Gaza.
Trump recommends 50% tariff on the European Union starting 1 June
Graeme Wearden
Donald Trump has just announced he is recommending a 50% tariff on goods from the European Union, from the start of next month.
Ratcheting up the trade war, Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that the EU has been “very difficul” to deal with, and that the current US trade in goods deficit is “totally unacceptable”.
Trump also claims that the EU was set up to take advantage of the US on trade.
He says:
The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on TRADE, has been very difficult to deal with.
Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable. Our discussions with them are going nowhere!
Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
You can follow all the latest tariff developments on our business live blog:
President Donald Trump said on Friday that Apple would have to pay a 25% tariff if phones sold in the country were not made within its borders.
Shares of Apple dropped 2.5% in premarket trading on Trump’s warning, dragging down U.S. stock index futures lower.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”
It is not clear if Trump can levy a tariff on an individual company.
The Department of Veterans Affairs, the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system, has been plunged into crisis amid canceled contracts, hiring freezes, resignations, layoffs and other moves by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), internal agency documents obtained by the Guardian show.
The documents paint a grim picture of chaos across the department’s sprawling network of 170 veterans affairs (VA) hospitals and more than 1,300 outpatient clinics, which serve 9 million US military veterans.
At the Danville VA medical center, in rural Illinois near the Indiana border, so many nurses resigned that hospital administrators were forced to close the acute care unit to new patients.
The dysfunction has also included a backlog of 2,298 unread radiology exams in Orlando, Florida, and the cancellation of a dozen rheumatology appointments in Montrose, New York. In Battle Creek, Michigan, a spate of resignations, early separation offers and a hiring freeze has led to a “critical” shortage of police officers responsible for protecting VA patients.
The Guardian’s investigation, based on a review of “issue briefs” filed within the last month to the agency’s central office by staff at more than a dozen hospitals, comes at a time of increased scrutiny of the Trump administration’s handling of the VA.
US and Iran to resume nuclear talks amid clashing red lines *
Iranian and US negotiators will resume talks on Friday in Rome to resolve a decades-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, despite Tehran’s supreme leader warning that clinching a new deal might be insurmountable amid clashing red lines.
The stakes are high for both sides, Reuters reports. President Donald Trump wants to curtail Tehran’s potential to produce a nuclear weapon that could trigger a regional nuclear arms race. The Islamic Republic, for its part, wants to be rid of devastating sanctions on its oil-based economy.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will hold a fifth round of talks, through Omani mediators, despite both Washington and Tehran taking a tough stance in public over Iran’s uranium enrichment.
Although Iran insists the talks are indirect, US officials have said the discussions – including the latest round on 11 May in Oman – have been both “direct and indirect”.
Araqchi, who arrived in Rome with his two deputies, wrote on X: “ … Zero nuclear weapons = we Do have a deal. Zero enrichment = we do NOT have a deal. Time to decide”.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday that Trump believes negotiations with Iran are “moving in the right direction”.
Tehran and Washington have both said they prefer diplomacy to settle the impasse, but remain deeply split on several red lines that negotiators will have to circumvent to reach a new nuclear deal and avert future military action.
A federal judge extended on Thursday a temporary block on a bid by president Donald Trump’s administration to lay off hundreds of thousands of federal employees, saying he needed permission from Congress before restructuring the US government.
In her order, US district judge Susan Illston barred agencies from mass layoffs, a key piece of Trump’s plans to downsize or eliminate many federal agencies, pending the outcome of a lawsuit by unions, nonprofits and municipalities, Reuters reported.
On 9 May, Illston had blocked about 20 agencies from making mass layoffs for two weeks and ordered the reinstatement of workers who had already lost their jobs.
In Thursday’s order, she largely continued the relief provided in the temporary restraining order, with some refinement.
The administration has asked the US supreme court to pause Illston’s temporary ruling, saying she improperly infringed on Trump’s constitutional powers to control the executive branch.
That bid is likely to be moot after Thursday’s ruling, which the Trump administration can immediately appeal.
Trump pushes EU to cut tariffs or face extra duties, FT reports
President Donald Trump’s trade negotiators are pushing the EU to make unilateral tariff reductions on US goods, saying without concessions the bloc will not progress in talks to avoid additional 20% “reciprocal” duties, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer is preparing to tell European trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič on Friday that a recent “explanatory note” shared by Brussels for the talks falls short of US expectations, the newspaper said citing unnamed sources.
The FT added that the European Union has been pushing for a jointly agreed framework text for the talks but the two sides remain too far apart.
The US imposed 25% tariffs on EU cars, steel and aluminium in March and 20% tariffs on other EU goods in April.
It then halved the 20% rate until 8 July, setting a 90-day window for talks to reach a more comprehensive tariff deal.
South Korea’s defence ministry says no talks held with US on troop withdrawal
South Korea’s defence ministry said on Friday that Seoul and Washington had not had discussions about the withdrawal of some US troops stationed in the country.
The ministry made the comment in response to a report by the Wall Street Journal that said the US was considering pulling out roughly 4,500 troops from South Korea, Reuters reported.
One option being considered was to relocate some of the troops to other locations in the Indo-Pacific region including Guam, according to the report, which cited unnamed US military officials.
There are currently 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea.
China pledges support for overseas students after Trump’s Harvard curb
Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
The Trump administration revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students in its escalating battle with the Ivy League school, saying thousands of current students must transfer to other schools or leave the country.
The Department of Homeland Security announced the action Thursday, saying Harvard has created an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. It also accused Harvard of coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party, saying it hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.
“This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” the agency said in a statement.
Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accounting for more than a quarter of its student body. Most are graduate students, coming from more than 100 countries.
It comes as China’s foreign ministry said today that it will safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of its overseas students and scholar.
US actions will undoubtedly affect its image and credibility, said Mao Ning, spokesperson for the ministry, during a regular press briefing, adding that educational cooperation between China and the US benefits both parties.
In other news:
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The US justice department charged the lone suspect in a brazen attack that killed two young Israeli embassy staff members outside the Jewish museum in downtown Washington DC with murder of foreign officials and other crimes. Court documents released on Thursday charged Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, with the Wednesday night killings that left the US capital in shock and were condemned by world leaders as “horrible” and “antisemitic”. According to the filing, the suspect told police after his arrest: “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”
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Mahmoud Khalil, the detained Palestinian activist, was allowed to hold his one-month-old son for the first time after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to keep the father and infant separated by a plexiglass divider, reports the Associated Press. The visit today came ahead of a scheduled immigration hearing for Khalil, a legal permanent resident and Columbia University graduate who has been held in a Louisiana jail since 8 March.
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The North Dakota governor Kelly Armstrong accidentally vetoed $35m for the state’s housing budget. When Armstrong took up an agency budget bill approved by the legislature, he thought he vetoed a couple of line items. But he vetoed millions for North Dakota’s housing budget. Now the state is figuring out how to deal with the unusual problem of a mistaken veto.
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The supreme court declined to reinstate independent agency board members fired by Donald Trump. The court’s action extended an order chief justice John Roberts issued in April that had the effect of removing two board members whom Trump fired from agencies that deal with labor issues, including one with a key role for federal workers as the president aims to drastically downsize the workforce. The decision Thursday keeps on hold an appellate ruling that had temporarily reinstated Gwynne Wilcox to the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
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Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that Bernie Navarro, the founder of the Miami lender Benworth Capital, will be the ambassador to Peru. Navarro is an ally and donor to secretary of state, Marco Rubio. Benworth was sued last year by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
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Donald Trump showed a screenshot of a Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented on Wednesday as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans, Reuters itself reports. “These are all white farmers that are being buried,” said Trump, holding up a print-out of an article accompanied by the picture during a contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. In fact, the video published by Reuters on February 3 and subsequently verified by the new agency’s fact check team, showed humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Congolese city of Goma. The image was pulled from Reuters footage shot following deadly battles with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.
