Harvard University is fighting back against the Trump administration after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked its certification to admit foreign students in an escalation of its fight with the institution and an effort to hurt its finances.
Harvard’s president, Alan Gerber, told the university community about the lawsuit in a letter. The complaint bluntly states, “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, says the government’s actions break the First Amendment, deny due process, and violate DHS rules. The case was filed only hours after DHS Secretary Kristi Noem removed Harvard from the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.
Gerber called the government’s move a punishment. He said it was meant to “lash out at Harvard over its 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 closed his letter with a strong message: “We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action.”
