Harvard sues Trump over foreign students ban

US judge has also blocked administration’s order and issued a temporary freeze

By Susie Coen | May 23, 2025 8:11pm BST

Harvard University is suing the Trump administration after it banned the Ivy League institute from enroling foreign students.

The Department of Homeland Security revoked the university’s ability to enrol foreign students and ruled current international students have to leave the university or lose their right to be in the US on Thursday.

The ban affects around 7,000 international students studying at Harvard, which make up around 30 per cent of the school’s student body.

In a lawsuit filed on Friday, Harvard accused the Trump administration of wielding a “campaign of retribution” against the university after it refused to capitulate to the administration’s laundry list of demands to overhaul its hiring, admissions and teaching practices.

A US judge on Friday blocked the administration’s policy and issued a temporary restraining order freezing the measure. The ruling came from from Allison Burroughs, a US district judge and one of Barack Obama’s appointees.

Christopher Rim, a university admissions coach, said four international students he helped get into Harvard are affected by the ruling, including one from the UK who was set to be among the 70 to 80 British students who enrol in the university each academic year.

Three of the students were scheduled to enrol this year, after selecting Harvard out of a string of other Ivy League universities they got into.

He told The Telegraph he is advising the students to think about taking a gap year, including the student who is already at Harvard, although this will be “disruptive” to his studying.

“These students have worked so hard… they’ve been focusing on this moment forever, and they’ve worked hard, and they achieved their goal of getting into Harvard, like, arguably one of the best universities in the world, or the best university, and I don’t want them to just transfer, I want them to wait and take a gap year and then start freshman year next year.”

A 21-year-old sciences student approaching his final year of study at Harvard, who did not want to be named, told The Telegraph: “It was a weird feeling.

“I think there’s part of you that knows something of this magnitude was going to happen given the tension we’ve seen prior to it but you don’t ever expect it to happen.

“You never really think it’s going to get to the point where you get a notification from The New York Times saying Trump has suspended students.”

He agreed with his university’s decision to sue the Trump administration over the decision: “I am hopeful and I do think [Harvard] suing the Trump administration is a step in the right direction and does feed them a bit of hope.

“We feel attacked, misplaced, but also feel close to Harvard. Moments and challenges like this are when you see what this school means.”

Harvard has so far been the only institution to push back against the White House amid Donald Trump’s crackdown on universities.

Last month the university sued the Trump administration after it froze $2.2 billion of the school’s funding for refusing to agree to its demands.

Harvard said the blocking of foreign students was evidence of a “clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”

“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,” the lawsuit said.

“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the university added.

The 389-year-old school asked a federal judge to block the revocation, citing “the immediate and irreparable harm inflicted by this lawless action.”

Dr Alan M Garber, Harvard’s president, said the action was “unlawful and unwarranted”.

In a letter to the Harvard community, he said 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 fulfil their dreams.”

The termination of Harvard’s student and exchange visitor programme certification, effective with the 2025-2026 academic year, was announced by Kristi Noem, the Homeland security secretary.

Chinese students make up more than a fifth of Harvard’s international enrolment, according to university figures, and Beijing said the decision will “only harm the image and international standing of the United States.”

“The Chinese side has consistently opposed the politicisation of educational cooperation,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

She said the termination was justified because of Harvard’s “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”

It comes weeks after Ms Noem demanded a large trove of information from Harvard about student visa holders.

In his letter on Friday, Garber said Harvard responded to Homeland Security Department requests as required by law.

Responding to the lawsuit, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson accused Harvard of not attempting to “end the scourge of anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist agitators on their campus”.

“Harvard should spend their time and resources on creating a safe campus environment instead of filing frivolous lawsuits,” she added.

Harvard was one of scores of US universities where controversial pro-Palestinian protests erupted last year on campus, with students forming encampments on university grounds.

An internal report on antisemitism from Harvard published earlier this year found Jewish students reported feeling unsafe and pushed to the “periphery of campus”.

The row over antisemitism saw Claudine Gay, the former president of the university, resign.

It came after she took part in a disastrous congressional hearing about antisemitism at US universities, during which she failed to unequivocally condemn calls for genocide against Jews.

Asked whether such calls breached Harvard’s bullying and harassment policy, she said it depended “on the context”.

Columbia University, which was ground zero for the pro-Palestinian encampments, had $400 million federal funding cut by the Trump administration over claims it had failed to sufficiently clamp down on acts of antisemitism on its campus.

The university caved to the Trump administration’s demands, which included banning masks and putting the department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies under “academic receivership,” meaning it will be placed under control of someone outside of the department.

The university has not had its funding restored. This week the White House accused the university of violating civil rights law by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward discrimination against Jewish students.

Originally published on The Telegraph on May 23, 2025