Harvard students protested US President Donald Trump’s decision to cut all remaining federal contracts with the Ivy league university. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has ordered a halt to all international student visa processing, as it prepares to expand social media vetting for all foreign applicants.
Published On 28 May 202528 May 2025
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a middle-school student’s claim he had a free-speech right to wear a T-shirt stating there are “only two genders.”
Over two dissents, the justices let stand a ruling that said a school may enforce a dress code to protect students from “hate speech” or bullying.
After three months of internal debate, the justices decided they would not take up another conservative culture-war challenge to progressive policies that protect LGBTQ+ youth.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. filed a 14-page dissent joined only by Justice Clarence Thomas. He said the case “presented an issue of great importance for our nation’s youth: whether public schools may suppress student speech because it expresses a viewpoint the schools disfavor.”
Liam Morrison, a seventh-grader from Massachusetts, said he was responding to his school’s promotion of Pride Month when students were encouraged to wear rainbow colors and posters urged them to “rise up to protect trans and gender-nonconforming students.”
Two years ago, he went to school wearing a black T-shirt that said “There are only two genders.”
A teacher reported him to the principal, who sent him home to change his shirt. A few weeks later, he returned with the word “censored” taped over the words “two genders” and was sent home again.
The T-shirt dispute asked the Supreme Court to decide whether school officials may limit the free expression of some students to protect others from messages they may see as offensive or hurtful.
In March, the court voted to hear a free-speech challenge to laws in California and 21 other states that prohibit licensed counselors from using “conversion therapy” with minors.
That case, like the one on school T-shirts, arose from appeals by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group. It has already won free-speech rulings that allowed a cake maker and a website designer to refuse to participate in same-sex weddings despite state laws that barred discrimination based on sexual orientation.
On April 22, the court sounded ready to rule for religious parents in Montgomery County, Md., who seek the right to have their young elementary children “opt out” of the classroom use of new “LGBTQ-inclusive” storybooks.
The T-shirt case came before the court shortly after President Trump’s executive order declaring the U.S. government will “recognize two sexes, male and female,” not “an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity.”
Although the Supreme Court has yet to rule on T-shirts and the 1st Amendment, lower courts have upheld limits imposed by schools.
In 2006, the 9th Circuit Court in a 2-1 decision upheld a move by school officials at Poway High School in San Diego to bar a student from wearing a T-shirt that said “Homosexuality is shameful.” The appeals court said students are free to speak on controversial matters, but they are not free to make “derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students’ minority status such as race, religion and sexual orientation.”
Other courts have ruled schools may prohibit a student from wearing a Confederate flag on a T-shirt.
In the new case from Massachusetts, the boy’s father said his son’s T-shirt message was not “directed at any particular person” but dealt with a “hot political topic.”
In their defense, school officials pointed to their policy against bullying and a dress code that says “clothing must not state, imply, or depict hate speech or imagery that target groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, or any other classification.”
Lawyers for the Alliance Defending Freedom sued on the student’s behalf and argued the school violated his rights under the 1st Amendment. They lost before a federal judge in Boston who ruled for school officials and said the T-shirt “invaded the rights of the other students … to a safe and secure educational environment.”
The 1st Circuit Court agreed as well, noting that schools may limit free expression of students if they fear a particular message will cause a disruption or “poison the atmosphere” at school.
The Supreme Court’s most famous ruling on student rights arose during the Vietnam War. In 1969, the Warren court ruled for high school students who wore black armbands as a protest.
In Tinker vs. Des Moines, the court said students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. … For school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, [they] must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.”
The justices said then a symbolic protest should be permitted so long as it did not cause a “substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.”
The attorneys for Liam Morrison contended he should win under that standard.
“This case isn’t about T-shirts. It’s about public school telling a middle-schooler that he isn’t allowed to express a view that differs from their own,” said David Cortman, an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney in the case of L.M. vs. Town of Middleborough.
Harvard’s crest adorns a gate on the campus of the university. File Photo by CJ Gunther/EPA-EFE
May 25 (UPI) — President Donald Trump again raged against Harvard University on Sunday, demanding that the university provide a list of names of its international students and the countries they come from.
Trump made his comments amid his ongoing feud with the prestigious university on his Truth Social platform.
It was not immediately clear what Trump meant, as international students are required to have student visas provided by the State Department, the records of which his administration would be able to access.
After students arrive in the United States, their status is then monitored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which tracks such students through its Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database. Universities are legally required to update this federal database regularly.
“Why isn’t Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students are from foreign lands, and yet those countries, some not at all friendly to the United States, pay nothing toward their student’s education, nor do they ever intend to,” Trump said.
“Nobody told us that! We want to know who those foreign students are, a reasonable request since we give Harvard billions of dollars, but Harvard isn’t exactly forthcoming. We want those names and countries.”
The remarks from Trump came after a federal judge on Friday blocked his administration’s efforts to prevent the university from enrolling anyone in the United States on a student visa.
“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,” university president Alan Garber said in a statement Friday morning.
“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 throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.”
The university has not yet publicly commented on Trump’s latest demand.
The clash between Trump and Harvard has been escalating for months. In April, the administration froze over $2 billion in federal research funding to the university after Harvard refused to comply with demands to alter its curriculum, admissions policies, and faculty hiring practices.
The administration also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and demanded the university conduct a “viewpoint diversity” audit.
STUDENTS in the South of England are nearly twice as likely to get three A* A-level grades than those in the North, data reveals.
Just 5,800 of the 258,000 who sat the exams last year came away with three or more top grades.
Of those, 3,779 were from the South and 2,021 in the North.
Nine out of ten of the best areas for A-levels were in the South. Pupils in reading, in Berks, came out top — with seven per cent hitting the highest grades.
Dozens in London suburbs Kingston, Newham, Sutton and Barnet also got top marks.
The Government stats show Salford, Gtr Manchester, fared the worst, with a single set of three A* grades.
Social mobility expert Professor Lee Elliot Major called it a national scandal, saying: “These figures lay bare a brutal truth — your chances of the highest academic success at school are still shaped more by where you live than what you’re capable of.
“This A-star divide highlights the vast differences in support offered to today’s children and young people both outside and inside the classroom.
“Increasingly A-level grades are as much a sign of how much support young people have had as much as their academic capability.
“This isn’t just a North-South education divide. It’s a London and South East versus the rest Divide.”
The Department for Education said: “We are taking measures to tackle baked-in inequalities.”
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May 23 (UPI) — A federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday issued an injunction that blocks President Donald Trump‘s administration from stopping Harvard University’s enrollment of international students.
The Trump administration may not proceed with an order that blocks Harvard from using the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Massachusetts Allison D. Burroughs said in her written ruling.
Such an order would cause Harvard to “sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties,” Burroughs wrote.
On Thursday, the Trump administration blocked Harvard from using the SEVP process to enroll foreign students, because of the school’s “refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students.”
Harvard filed a lawsuit, naming the Justice Department, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others as defendants, seeking to block the move.
“This revocation is a blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act. 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,” the lawsuit contends.
The university contends the administration’s move would negatively affect more than 7,000 current students.
“For more than 70 years, Harvard University has been certified by the federal government to enroll international students under the F-1 visa program, and it has long been designated as an exchange program sponsor to host J-1 nonimmigrants. Harvard has, over this time, developed programs and degrees tailored to its international students, invested millions to recruit the most talented such students, and integrated its international students into all aspects of the Harvard community,” the school said in its application for an injunction.
This week’s news is the latest chapter in a back-and-forth saga between the Trump administration and the post-secondary institution.
Last month, the federal government said it would withhold some $2 billion in funding. Earlier this month, the government blocked further grants, accusing Harvard of “engaging in a systemic pattern of violating federal law.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the school is resisting what the administration calls “common-sense reforms.”
Earlier, the school took to social media to state its views on the matter. On Twitter, it posted, “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
Later, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also used the same social-media app to criticize the administration’s moves. “America cannot long remain free, nor first among nations, if it becomes the kind of place where universities are dismantled because they don’t align politically with the current head of the government,” he said.
WASHINGTON — A multifront assault by the Trump administration against the nation’s oldest university intensified on Friday when Harvard sued to block the government from barring international student enrollment, and a judge issued an immediate order to halt the ban.
The rapid-fire legal action is the latest in Trump administration attacks against the university as it claims Harvard failed to adhere to its demands to combat antisemitism.
But the whiplash felt by Harvard international students is reverberating far beyond Cambridge, Mass., as university leaders and foreign students across the United States and California watch with growing alarm over how federal actions will affect the nation’s 1.1-million foreign student population — 6% of American higher education enrollment.
Campuses have been on alert since last month, when the Homeland Security and State departments canceled thousands of enrollment certifications and visas at dozens of U.S. colleges, including UCLA, for individuals who often had minor infractions such as traffic tickets. The government, seeing losses in court, later reversed those cancellations and was further blocked from undertaking them when an Oakland-based federal judge issued an injunction Thursday.
“The current mindset of the international community is uncertainty,” said Syed Tamim Ahmad, a junior at UCLA who is from India and recently completed his term as the student government’s international student representative.
Ahmad, who recently took the MCAT and plans to apply to medical school, said he was reconsidering whether continuing his studies in the United States is a safe option.
“We do not know what to expect or what to come next,” he said. “Every student saw what happened at Harvard and was absolutely shocked. We wonder, what if it happens at UCLA or any other university?”
UCLA senior Adam Tfayli, a dual U.S.-Lebanese citizen who grew up in Beirut, had a different view. “My friends at Harvard are very concerned right now,” said Tfayli, who finished his term this week as the Undergraduate Student Assn. Council President. “At UCLA, it’s tense just because it has been on college campuses for months under this administration, but doesn’t feel as bad as it did when people’s visas were being revoked last month.”
In a statement, UCLA Vice Chancellor of Strategic Communications Mary Osako said that “international Bruins are an essential part of our community.”
“We recognize that recent developments at other universities have created a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety, and we remain committed to supporting all Bruins’ ability to work, learn, teach and thrive here at UCLA,” Osako said.
USC, home to 17,000 international students — the most of any California school — declined to respond to events at Harvard, and pointed The Times to statements on its Office of International Services website about foreign students. “New restrictions could be implemented with little notice. The decision to travel internationally should be made carefully,” said a letter this month.
Like at Harvard, government officials have also scrutinized USC for its enrollment of Chinese students, who they have suggested may be a security threat — an accusation that also arose at California colleges during the first Trump administration. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students amid pro-Palestinian protests, accused the university on Thursday of “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”
In March, a House commitee wrote to USC to request data on Chinese nationals and their “involvement in federally funded research and the security of sensitive technologies developed on campus.”
USC said in a statement Friday that it is “cooperating with the select committee’s inquiries and are following all applicable privacy laws and other legal protections.”
Speaking on Fox News on Thursday, Noem said the actions against Harvard were a “warning” to universities nationwide.
“This should be a warning to every other university to get your act together,” she said. “Get your act together.”
The case amplifies an increasingly existential fight for Harvard, one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher education. The Trump administration has launched multiple investigations into the university, moved to freeze nearly $3 billion in federal funding and pushed to end its tax-exempt status. Taken together, the federal actions raise fundamental questions over Harvard’s ability to sustain its international standards.
Harvard alleged in its suit Friday that the Trump administration’s moves mark “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 administration’s “pernicious” actions, Harvard alleged, would prevent some of the world’s greatest minds from pursuing research and degrees at the university. Already, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has offered “unconditional” acceptance of international students forced to depart the Boston area due to Trump’s policies.
U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs, appointed by former President Obama, granted an immediate restraining order, agreeing with Harvard’s argument that the Trump directive would cause “immediate and irreparable harm” to the institution.
In a statement to The Times, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, dismissed the judicial injunction out of Massachusetts.
“The American people elected President Trump — not random local judges with their own liberal agenda — to run the country,” Jackson said. “These unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy.”
The Trump administration’s assault on higher education has not focused solely on Harvard, but on much of the Ivy League and other elite campuses, including Columbia University, several UC campuses, USC and Stanford. Columbia and UCLA in particular became a focal point last year when protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza roiled campuses.
A Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism established by Trump sent Harvard a letter last month demanding the university police ideology on campus and expel students it deems are “anti-American.”Harvard has sued over those demands, as well, calling them a violation of free speech.
Discussing the legal fight with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump noted that “billions of dollars have been paid to Harvard.”
“How ridiculous is that?” he asked. “Harvard’s going to have to change its ways.”
The same task force has also similarly singled out UCLA, USC and UC Berkeley. While the campuses have been subject to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant cancellations that have affected a wide swath of American academia, they have not seen the targeted federal funding clawbacks that took place at Harvard and Columbia.
Still, the California universities — anticipating less federal support overall — have recently instituted hiring freezes and budget cuts. They’ve also vowed to address campus antisemitism allegations and faced criticism that they have given unequal treatment to allegations of bias against Muslim and Arab American student activists.
from Chicago and Cambridge
ReuterA judge has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s plan to strip Harvard University of its ability to enrol foreign students.
The ruling came after Harvard filed a lawsuit – the latest escalation of a dispute between the White House and one of America’s most prestigious institutions.
The university said the administration’s decision on Thursday to bar international students was a “blatant violation” of the law and free speech rights.
The Trump administration says Harvard has not done enough to fight antisemitism, and change its hiring and admissions practices – allegations that the university has strongly denied.
US District Judge Allison Burroughs issued a temporary restraining order in a short ruling issued on Friday.
The order pauses a move that the Department of Homeland Security made on Thursday to revoke Harvard’s access to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) – a government database that manages foreign students.
The next hearing will occur on 29 May in Boston.
“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,” Harvard argued in the lawsuit.
“We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a letter.
“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,” he wrote.
In response, White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said: “If only Harvard cared this much about ending the scourge of anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist agitators on their campus they wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.
After the restraining order was issued, Ms Jackson accused the judge in the case of having a “liberal agenda”.
“These unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump Administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy,” she said.
It was quiet at Harvard on Friday. Classes have finished for the year and preparations are being made for commencements. Gazebos were going up on the quad as students rented their gowns and collected tickets for family members.
For those graduating, it should be a week of celebration. But for foreign students hoping to remain in the US, it’s been a 24-hour whirlwind.
Cormac Savage from Downpatrick in Co Down Northern Ireland is six days away from graduating with a degree in government and languages. He’s taking a job in Brussels, partly because of the uncertainty in the US:
“You know that you’re fine if you’re still legally in the United States for the next 90 days, but you don’t know that you can come back and finish your degree,” he said on Friday. “You don’t know if you can stay and work in the US if you’re about to graduate.
The order also complicates plans for students still enroled, like Rohan Battula, a junior from the UK who will rely on his visa to work in New York in June.
“I was worried if I went home I wouldn’t get to come back,” he told BBC, so he opted to stay on campus. Mr Battula felt relieved after Judge Burroughs issued her order.
But the uncertainty took a toll.
“It’s surreal to think that even for some period of time youre unlawfully staying in a country, just because you’ve been to university there,” he said.
There are around 6,800 international students at Harvard, who make up more than 27% of its enrolled students this year.
Around a fifth of them are from China, with significant numbers from Canada, India, South Korea and the UK. Among the international students currently enrolled is the future queen of Belgium, 23-year-old Princess Elisabeth.
Leo Ackerman was set to study education and entrepreneurship at Harvard beginning in August, fulfilling a “dream”.
“I was really excited, and I’m still really excited if I manage to go there,” Mr Ackerman said. “Having it taken away feels like a really sad moment for a lot of people.”
Eliminating foreign students would take a large bite out of Harvard’s finances. Experts say international students are more likely to pay full tuition, essentially subsidising aid for American students.
Undergraduate tuition – not including fees, housing, books, food or health insurance – will reach $59,320 (£43,850) in the coming academic year, according to the university. The total cost of a year at Harvard before any financial aid is usually significantly more than $100,000.
Isaac Bangura, a public administration student from Sierra Leone, moved to Harvard with his wife and two young daughters after surviving a civil war.
“Since yesterday, my kids has been asking, ‘Daddy, I understand they are coming to return us home again.’ They are referring to deportation,” he said.
He said he has to be strong for them and has faith. “I know the American people are always, whenever they are into issues, they will find ways of resolving it,” he said.
In addition to Harvard, the Trump administration has taken aim at other elite institutions, not only arguing that they should do more to clamp down on pro-Palestinian activists but also claiming they discriminate against conservative viewpoints.
On Friday, speaking from the Oval Office, President Donald Trump said, “Harvard is going to have to change its ways” and suggested he is considering measures against more universities.
In April, the White House froze $2.2bn (£1.7bn) in federal funding to Harvard, and Trump has threatened to remove the university’s tax-exempt status, a standard designation for US educational institutions.
The funding freeze prompted an earlier Harvard lawsuit, also asking the courts to stop the administration’s actions.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, said the federal courts in Massachusetts and New England, where the initial stages of the case will play out, have consistently ruled against the Trump administration.
But the outcome may less predictable at the US Supreme Court, where Harvard’s case may end up.
“These are tough issues for Harvard, but they have the resources and they seem to have the will to fight,” Mr Tobias said.
Harvard leaders have made concessions to the White House – including dismissing the leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies, who had come under fire for failing to represent Israeli perspectives.
Still, it also enlisted several high-profile Republican lawyers, including Robert Hur, a former special counsel who investigated Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents.
Foreign students currently attending Harvard have expressed worries that the row could force them to transfer to another university or return home. Being logged on the SEVP system is a requirement for student visas and, if Harvard is blocked from the database, students could be found in violation and potentially face deportation.
Several British students enrolled at Harvard, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity out of fear of immigration authorities, worried their US education could be cut short.
“I definitely think freedom of speech is a problem on campus, but it’s being actively worked on… it was an absolute shock when yesterday’s announcement happened,” said one student
“There’s a lot of anger, people feeling like we’re being used as pawns in a game.”
With reporting from Kayla Epstein in New York, Bernd Debusmann at the White House and the BBC’s User Generated Content team
NEW YORK — The Trump administration is accusing Columbia University of violating the civil rights of Jewish students by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward what it describes as rampant antisemitism on campus.
The finding was announced late Thursday by the Health and Human Services Department, marking the latest blow for an Ivy League school already shaken by federal cutbacks and sustained government pressure to crack down on student speech.
It comes hours after the Department of Homeland Security said it would revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, a major escalation in the administration’s monthslong attack on higher education.
The civil rights division of HHS said it had found Columbia in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which blocks federal funding recipients from discrimination based on race, color or national origin. That final category, the press release notes, includes “discrimination against individuals that is based on their actual or perceived Israeli or Jewish identity or ancestry.”
The announcement did not include new sanctions against Columbia, which is already facing $400 million in federal cuts by the Trump administration over its response to pro-Palestinian campus protests.
A spokesperson for Columbia said the university is currently in negotiations with the government about resolving its claims of antisemitism.
“We understand this finding is part of our ongoing discussions with the government,” the spokesperson said in an email. “Columbia is deeply committed to combatting antisemitism and all forms of harassment and discrimination on our campus.”
The civil rights investigation into Columbia was based on witness interviews, media reports and other sources, according to HHS. The findings were not made public. A spokesperson did not response to a request for further information.
“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,” Anthony Archeval, acting director of the HHS civil rights office, said in a statement.
Last spring, Columbia became the epicenter of protests against the war in Gaza, spurring a national movement of campus demonstrations that demanded universities cut ties with Israel.
At the time, some Jewish students and faculty complained about being harassed during the demonstrations or ostracized because of their faith or their support of Israel.
Those who participated in Columbia’s protests, including some Jewish students, have said they are protesting Israel’s actions against Palestinians and have forcefully denied allegations of antisemitism.
Many have also accused the university of capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands — including placing its Middle East studies department under new leadership — at the expense of academic freedom and protecting foreign students.
At a commencement ceremony earlier this week, a speech by Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, was met with loud boos by graduates and chants of “free Palestine.”
Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.
The Trump administration blocked Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students on Thursday. The move marks a sharp escalation in tensions between the White House and the Ivy League university.
Published On 23 May 202523 May 2025
May 22 (UPI) — The Trump administration has stopped Harvard from accepting international students after the Ivy League institution lost its ability to use the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, the Trump administration announced Thursday.
The SEVP allows non-citizens to enroll using a specific visa.
“As a result of your refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ policies, you have lost this privilege,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a letter to school.
The letter went on to say that, as a result of the revocation, Harvard would be prohibited from having international students using specific types of nonimmigrant visas on campus for the 2025-2026 academic year, and said the students would have to transfer to another university to maintain their nonimmigrant status.
In a separate post on social media, Noem said Harvard had “plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused.”
In April, Noem wrote to Harvard asking university officials to provide the DHS with information about visa holders’ known illegal or violent activity, threats to fellow students or faculty, whether they had been involved in protests or disrupted students’ learning environment, and listing the coursework students were taking to maintain their visa status.
Noem has also said that the administration revoked two grants totaling $2.7 million, citing inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars.
The administration’s move is the latest step in a months-long fight with Harvard over international students during which the Trump administration threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax exempt status.
Harvard pushed back on Noem’s Thursday letter, calling the Trump administration’s move “unlawful,” and said it will likely file a second legal challenge.
“We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University — and this nation — immeasurably,” in a statement, the BBC reported.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says move is response to university’s refusal to comply with Trump demands.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has blocked Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
In a post on X on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration was “holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus”.
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enrol foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” she said. “Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused.”
In a letter to the university’s administration, Noem said the university’s Student Exchange Visitor Program certification has been revoked. The programme is overseen by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which falls under the agency Noem leads.
The move means that not only will Harvard not be able to accept foreign students on its campus, but current students will need to “transfer to another university in order to maintain their non-immigrant status”, the letter said.
Harvard did not immediately respond to the move, which was first reported by the New York Times.
The action represents an escalation amid a wider standoff between the university, which has refused to agree to a list of demands related to its diversity programmes and response to pro-Palestine protests, and the Trump administration.
The administration has responded with three rounds of federal funding and grants cuts. Harvard is currently pursuing a lawsuit accusing the administration of defying the US constitution in its actions.
More to come…
Students at a Columbia University graduation ceremony booed the school’s acting president, Claire Shipman, for her role in cracking down on pro-Palestinian protests. Earlier this month she allowed New York City police to arrest 78 protesters in the school’s library.
Published On 20 May 202520 May 2025