Above photo: Joseph Prezioso / Getty.
President Trump seeks to punish universities for failing to crack down on demonstrations opposing Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Harvard University announced on 23 May that it is suing the White House for what it called “clear retaliation” against the school for “exercising its First Amendment rights” after the government barred international student enrollment.
US President Donald Trump has sought to punish colleges and universities where student protests against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza have taken place.
International students are a large source of income for many US colleges and universities.
On Thursday, Trump blocked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, requested that Harvard’s international student records be provided within 72 hours, and said those currently enrolled should transfer to another school or leave the country.
“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,” Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement.
Garber wrote that the university will also file a motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent the administration from taking any further action against the school.
The lawsuit said the administration’s “decertification decision causes immediate, ongoing, and irreparable harm to Harvard.”
President Trump’s administration blocked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students — a move which Harvard said was illegal and amounted to retaliation https://t.co/qcA8tnzzlA pic.twitter.com/y7RxdOXsHD
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 23, 2025
Harvard asked the court to block the White House from implementing or maintaining the ban.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has accused universities of allowing pro-Palestine protests of “fostering violence, anti-Semitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”
The White House has repeatedly made allegations of anti-Semitism to shut down pro-Palestine student movements on college campuses, even though Jewish student groups have played a role in organizing protests for Gaza.
In March, Trump began an effort to hunt down and deport foreign students involved in the protest movement.
A Syrian student named Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leaders of the pro-Palestinian student demonstrations on the campus of Columbia University, was the first to be arrested and face deportation.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity,” Trump claimed in a message on social media.
US Jewish religious leaders have lobbied lawmakers to restrict free speech and make expressions they view as antisemitic, including criticism of Israel, illegal on college campuses.
