Harvard Sues After Trump Administration Ends School’s Ability to Host Foreign Students

Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday in response to DHS revoking the school’s certification to host international students. The Trump administration had stripped Harvard of its ability to enroll foreign students earlier Friday, accusing the school of failing to heed the law.

“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.  

“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” Noem continued in a statement. Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused.”  

Currently, there are over 6,700 international students studying at Harvard, making up about 27% of the Ivy League school’s student body, according to the university. 

Harvard is losing its “Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law,” according to Noem. “Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.” 

DHS operates the Student and Exchange Visitor Program to ensure foreign students are in the country legally.

Harvard President Alan Garber called the administration’s latest move part of 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.” 

The complaint filed in Massachusetts claims the administration’s actions “depart from decades of settled practice and come without rational explanation. And they were carried out abruptly without any of the robust procedures the government has established to prevent just this type of upheaval to thousands of students’ lives.” 

Following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that left 1,200 people dead and another 251 held hostage in Gaza, pro-Palestine demonstrations and student groups used antisemitic language that then-Harvard President Claudine Gay failed to clearly denounce.  

In a letter at the end of March, Garber said he himself has “antisemitism directly, even while serving as president,” and vowed that the university would “continue to combat antisemitism and to foster a campus culture that includes and supports every member of our community.”  

Over concerns that foreign students were generating antisemitism on campus, Noem in April “demanded Harvard provide information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus,” according to DHS.  

Noem told Harvard that failure to cooperate with DHS would result in the university losing its ability to host international students. Harvard did not comply.  

“Harvard University brazenly refused to provide the required information requested and ignored a follow up request from the Department’s Office of General Council,” according to DHS. “Secretary Noem is following through on her promise to protect students and prohibit terrorist sympathizers from receiving benefits from the U.S. government.”  

The latest action against Harvard follows the Trump administration’s decision in April to terminate $2.7 million in DHS grants to the university over the school’s failure to combat antisemitism, and President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding to the university.

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