Updated: 8:32 a.m.
(Reuters) -Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Friday over its decision to revoke the Ivy League school’s ability to enroll foreign students, ratcheting up White House efforts to conform practices in academia to President Donald Trump’s policies.
In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Harvard called the revocation a “blatant violation” of the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws, and had an “immediate and devastating effect” on the university and more than 7,000 visa holders.
The termination of Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effective with the 2025-2026 academic year, was announced by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and affects about one-quarter of Harvard’s students.
Noem said terminating the certification was justified because of Harvard’s “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”
The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a letter to the Harvard community, the school’s president Alan Garber condemned the administration’s actions.
“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,” Garber wrote.
Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in its current school year, equal to 27% of total enrollment.
In its complaint, Harvard said the revocation would force it to retract admissions for thousands of people, and has thrown “countless” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories into disarray, just a few days before graduation.
“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.
“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the 389-year-old school added.
The revocation follows Noem’s demand on April 16 for a large trove of information from Harvard about student visa holders.
In a letter to Harvard, which was attached to the complaint, Noem said the information was needed because the university had “created a hostile learning environment for Jewish students due to Harvard’s failure to condemn antisemitism.”
On Thursday, Noem said Harvard could restore its certification by turning over within 72 hours a raft of records about international students, including video or audio of their protest activity in the past five years.
In his letter on Friday, Garber said Harvard responded to Homeland Security Department requests as required by law.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in Chicago and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Toby Chopra and Daniel Wallis)
BOSTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students on Thursday, and is forcing current foreign students to transfer to other schools or lose their legal status, while also threatening to expand the crackdown to other colleges.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered the department to terminate Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification effective for the 2025-2026 school year, the department said in a statement.
Noem accused the university of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”
Harvard said the move by the Trump administration – which affects thousands of students – was illegal and amounted to retaliation.
The decision marked a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against the elite Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has emerged as one of Trump’s most prominent institutional targets. The move came after Harvard refused to provide information that Noem demanded about some foreign student visa holders at Harvard, the department said.
Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in the 2024-2025 school year, amounting to 27% of its total enrollment, according to university statistics.
In 2022, Chinese nationals were the biggest group of foreign students at 1,016, university figures showed. After that were students from Canada, India, South Korea, Britain, Germany, Australia, Singapore and Japan.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“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 said in a statement.
In a letter to the university, Noem gave Harvard “the opportunity” to regain its certification by turning over within 72 hours a raft of records about foreign students, including any video or audio of their protest activity in the past five years.
Harvard called the government’s action “unlawful” and said it was “fully committed” to educating foreign students.
“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” the university said in a statement.
Congressional Democrats denounced the revocation, with U.S. Representative Jaime Raskin calling it an “intolerable attack on Harvard’s independence and academic freedom” and saying it was government retaliation for Harvard’s previous resistance to Trump.
Trump has already frozen some $3 billion in federal grants to Harvard in recent weeks, leading the university to sue to restore the funding.
In a separate lawsuit related to Trump’s efforts to terminate the legal status of hundreds of foreign students across the U.S., a federal judge ruled on Thursday that the administration could not end their status without following proper regulatory procedures. It was not immediately clear how that ruling would affect the action against Harvard.
During an interview with Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” Noem was asked if she was considering similar moves at other universities, including Columbia University in New York.
“Absolutely, we are,” Noem said. “This should be a warning to every other university to get your act together.”
TRUMP TARGETS UNIVERSITIES
Trump, a Republican, took office in January pledging a wide-ranging immigration crackdown. His administration has tried to revoke student visas and green cards of foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
He has undertaken an extraordinary effort to revamp private colleges and schools across the U.S., claiming they foster anti-American, Marxist and “radical left” ideologies. He has criticized Harvard for hiring prominent Democrats for teaching or leadership positions.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on Monday that it was terminating a further $60 million in federal grants to Harvard because it failed to address antisemitic harassment and ethnic discrimination.
In a legal complaint filed earlier this month, Harvard said it was committed to combating antisemitism and had taken steps to ensure its campus is safe and welcoming to Jewish and Israeli students.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration advocacy group, said the action against Harvard’s student visa program “needlessly punishes thousands of innocent students.”
“None of them have done anything wrong, they’re just collateral damage to Trump,” he said on the social media site Bluesky.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Ryan Patrick Jones, Jasper Ward and Ann Saphir; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Diane Craft and Cynthia Osterman)
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