Trump Admin’s Battle With Harvard Heats Up: 5 Takeaways

After the Trump administration moved to block Harvard from enrolling foreign students, a judge blocked that directive on Friday.

Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on May 23, 2025. Learner Liu/The Epoch Times

The Trump administration this week ramped up its battle with Harvard University by revoking the Ivy League college’s capacity to enroll foreign students, prompting a lawsuit from the school and a subsequent court order on Friday.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Thursday that the school’s foreign enrollment should be shut down for now due to it having allegedly coordinated with the Chinese Communist Party and for the alleged fostering of anti-Semitism and violence.

That triggered a lawsuit on Friday from Harvard in a federal court that accused the administration of violating its constitutional rights and asked for an injunction. A U.S. district judge hours later ruled to temporarily block DHS from enforcing its directive.

DHS Says It’s a ‘Warning’ to Others

The DHS order specifically terminated Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, meaning Harvard cannot enroll foreign students, and the foreign students who are enrolled at the college must transfer to another one.

“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. Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in the Thursday announcement. “It refused.”

The DHS had demanded that Harvard hand over information about whether there was any “criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus,” and it warned that failure to comply would result in that certification being terminated.

“Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country,” Noem said.

Trump Admin Already Targeted Harvard’s Funding

In April, the Trump administration moved to cancel more than $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard. A federal anti-Semitism task force said in mid-May that Harvard would lose an additional $450 million in grants from eight federal agencies.

The May 13 letter said Harvard has become a “breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination” and faces a “steep, uphill battle” to reclaim its legacy as a place of academic excellence.

“There is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus, and by prioritizing appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support,” the letter said.

Hours after those cuts were announced, Harvard filed a legal challenge to several sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in recent weeks. It was filed as an update to the university’s April lawsuit seeking to block the initial $2.2 billion freeze.

“All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear. Allow the government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions,” the university said in its complaint.

Separately, the DHS said that it has terminated $2.7 million in Homeland Security grants to Harvard.

Harvard Says It Will Fight Back

In the latest lawsuit filed by Harvard in a federal court in Massachusetts, the university’s lawyers 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 lawsuit. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”

A temporary restraining order was granted by U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs hours later.

The block on foreign enrollment immediately puts the school at a disadvantage as it competes for the world’s top students, Harvard said in the legal challenge. 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.

In a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon in mid-May, Harvard President Alan Garber said that the college has complied with some of the Trump administration’s directives and “implemented a comprehensive, institution-wide strategy to combat antisemitism and other bigotry through policy and discipline reforms, academic investments, community support initiatives, and educational programs.”

“I have also spoken out about the need for greater intellectual diversity on campus and have commenced initiatives to make Harvard a more pluralistic and welcoming place,” the letter said. “Knowing that Harvard, like many universities, has more work to do on this front, we intend to implement and expand these initiatives in the coming months.”

But Garber said he is refuting claims that the school is a “partisan institution.” In April, the university head issued a letter to the community saying it would refuse to comply with what it called “illegal demands” from the federal government.

The funding freeze, he said, would lead to a diminishing in research in improving “the prospects of children who survive cancer, to understand at the molecular level how cancer spreads throughout the body,” preventing the spread of diseases, and “to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield.”

Republicans Cheer, Democrats Push Back

In the midst of the legal wrangling, several Democrats have criticized the recent DHS decision, while some of President Donald Trump’s supporters have backed the move.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement on Thursday that the move is a “remarkably dangerous and unlawful action” by the federal government, claiming it’s to “settle a score and shut down any dissent, not to protect our national security.”

“This decision will now throw thousands of students’ lives into limbo as they face an uncertain future in a foreign land that had previously welcomed them and their talents,” she said.

Weeks before, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and several other Democrats, in a letter, urged the Internal Revenue Service’s watchdog to probe whether the administration has illegally pressured the agency to strip Harvard of its nonprofit status. It came after Trump wrote in a Truth Social post: “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), a Harvard alum, told Fox News on Friday that he backs the Homeland Security decision targeting the university’s enrollment.

“We should not be bringing people into America to get an education who hate us. They should be coming here to get an education,” he said.

Fine also said he agreed with comments made earlier by Noem.

“Harvard brought these consequences upon themselves. Harvard has a history of allowing not just protests, but violent protests where students were assaulted, they were discriminated against, they were verbally abused, and they’ve even facilitated a training for a paramilitary group affiliated with the CCP,” she said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

“So it’s not just pro-Hamas activities that they have allowed to happen on their campus. They’ve also allowed participation with Communist China.”

Task Force Faults Harvard

A joint presidential task force on May 13 said that the university has “failed to confront the pervasive race discrimination and anti-Semitic harassment” on its campus in recent months, accusing the school of having become radicalized.

As examples, it cited a report that the Harvard Law Review engaged in a pattern of race-based discrimination when it looked at articles for inclusion in the journal, and it at one point awarded a $65,000 fellowship to a “protester who faced criminal charges for assaulting a Jewish student on campus,” it said

“The decision was reviewed and approved by a faculty committee, demonstrating just how radical Harvard has become,” the task force said.

Separately, it said that Harvard’s statements indicating that it will not comply with the federal government’s demands reinforce “the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges—that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws.”

The Epoch Times contacted Harvard for comment on Friday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.