WASHINGTON: A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from cutting off Harvard’s enrollment of foreign students, an action the Ivy League school decried as unconstitutional retaliation for defying the White House’s political demands.
In its lawsuit filed earlier Friday in federal court in Boston, Harvard said the government’s action violates the First Amendment and will have an “immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”
“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 said in its suit. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
The ruling from US District Judge Allison Burroughs puts the sanction against Harvard on hold, pending the lawsuit.
The Trump administration move has thrown campus into disarray days before graduation, Harvard said in the suit. International students who run labs, teach courses, assist professors and participate in Harvard sports are now left deciding whether to transfer or risk losing legal status to stay in the country, according to the filing.

The impact would be heaviest at graduate schools such as the Harvard Kennedy School, where about half the student body comes from abroad, and Harvard Business School, which is about one-third international. Along with the impact on current students, the move would block thousands of students who were planning to come for summer and fall classes.
Harvard said it immediately puts the school at a disadvantage as it competes for the world’s top students. Even if it regains the ability to host students, “future applicants may shy away from applying out of fear of further reprisals from the government,” the suit said.
If the government’s action stands, Harvard said, the university would be unable to offer admission to new international students for at least the next two academic years. Schools that have that certification withdrawn by the federal government are ineligible to reapply until one year afterward, Harvard said.
Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most are graduate students, and they come from more than 100 countries.
The Department of Homeland Security announced the action Thursday, accusing Harvard of creating 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, contending the school had hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.

Harvard President Alan Garber earlier this month said the university has made changes to its governance over the past year and a half, including a broad strategy to combat antisemitism. He said Harvard would not budge on its “its core, legally-protected principles” over fears of retaliation. Harvard has said it will respond at a later time to allegations first raised by House Republicans about coordination with the Chinese Communist Party.
Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard president and US treasury secretary, wrote on X that the decision would mean losing key people, “some small fraction of whom are going to go on to be Prime Ministers of countries who’ve now been turned into enemies of the United States.” He said the administration’s action “is madness.”
The threat to Harvard’s international enrollment stems from an April 16 request from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who demanded that Harvard provide information about foreign students that might implicate them in violence or protests that could lead to their deportation.
Harvard says it provided “thousands of data points” in response to Noem’s April 16 demand. Her letter on Thursday said Harvard failed to satisfy her request, but the school said she failed to provide any further explanation.
“It makes generalized statements about campus environment and ‘anti-Americanism,’ again without articulating any rational link between those statements and the decision to retaliate against international students,” the suit said.
Harvard’s lawsuit said the administration violated the government’s own regulations for withdrawing a school’s certification.
The government can and does remove colleges from the Student Exchange and Visitor Program, making them ineligible to host foreign students on their campus. However, it’s usually for administrative reasons outlined in law, such as failing to maintain accreditation, lacking proper facilities for classes, or failing to employ qualified professional personnel.
Noem said Harvard can regain its ability to host foreign students if it produces a trove of records on foreign students within 72 hours. Her updated request demands all records, including audio or video footage, of foreign students participating in protests or dangerous activity on campus.
The lawsuit is separate from the university’s earlier one challenging more than $2 billion in federal cuts imposed by the Republican administration.
 

Bedeviled by leaks to the media during his short tenure, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a series of restrictions on the press late Friday that include banning reporters from entering wide swaths of the Pentagon without a government escort — areas where the press has had access in past administrations as it covers the activities of the world’s most powerful military.
Newly restricted areas include his office and those of his top aides and all of the different locations across the mammoth building where the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Space Force maintain press offices.
The media will also be barred from offices of the Pentagon’s senior military leadership, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, without Hegseth’s approval and an escort from his aides. The staff of the Joint Chiefs has traditionally maintained a good relationship with the press.
Hegseth, the former Fox News Channel personality, issued his order via a posting on X late on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. He said it was necessary for national security.
“While the department remains committed to transparency, the department is equally obligated to protect (classified intelligence information) and sensitive information, the unauthorized disclosure of which could put the lives of US service members in danger,” wrote Hegseth.
The Pentagon Press Association expressed skepticism that operational concerns were at play — and linked the move to previous actions by Hegseth’s office that impede journalists and their coverage.
“There is no way to sugarcoat it. Today’s memo by Secretary Hegseth appears to be a direct attack on the freedom of the press and America’s right to know what its military is doing,” it said in a statement Friday night. “The Pentagon Press Association is extremely concerned by the decision to restrict movement of accredited journalists within the Pentagon through non-secured, unclassified hallways.”
Hegseth also said reporters will be required to sign a form to protect sensitive information and would be issued a new badge that more clearly identifies them as press. It was not clear whether signing the form would be a condition of continued access to the building.
Two months ago, the department was embarrassed by a leak to The New York Times that billionaire Elon Musk was to get a briefing on the US military’s plans in case a war broke out with China. That briefing never took place, on President Donald Trump’s orders, and Hegseth suspended two Pentagon officials as part of an investigation into how that news got out.
The Pentagon was also embarrassed when the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently included in a group chat on the Signal messaging app where Hegseth discussed plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen. Trump’s former national security adviser, Mike Waltz, took responsibility for Goldberg being included and was shifted to another job.
The administration has taken several aggressive actions toward the press since Trump took over, including FCC investigations into ABC, CBS and NBC News. Restrictions imposed on The Associated Press’ access to certain White House events earlier this year led to a court battle that is ongoing.
The White House has also increased access for conservative media that are friendly to the president. Nevertheless, a study released earlier this month found that Trump had more frequent exchanges with reporters during his first 100 days in office than any of his six predecessors.
Hegseth, however, has been far less available. He has yet to speak to the press in the Pentagon briefing room. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell has held only one Pentagon press briefing since Jan. 20. The Pentagon has taken other steps to make it more difficult for reporters, including taking office space away from eight media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and NBC.