On Thursday, federal district Judge Allison Burroughs will hear the most significant debate so far in the ongoing fight between the Trump administration and Harvard University, after the administration last week tried to put into jeopardy the immigration status of more than 7,000 international students at the Massachusetts elite university.
The international student population at Harvard makes up 15 percent of undergraduates, and an even larger percentage of graduate students — in all, a quarter of Harvard’s student body. And the university says that with this case, its “educational mission, its competitive edge, and its academic and research programs” are fundamentally at stake, according to a university administrator who has provided a sworn statement to the court.
The arguments – at the courthouse along Boston’s harbor a few miles from where Harvard’s graduation ceremonies take place at the same time Thursday – are set to be the most significant debate so far in the ongoing fight between the administration and Harvard.
The judge has already temporarily blocked the US State Department and Department of Homeland Security from taking action on Harvard’s students. The university now aims for a more indefinite protection.
Harvard’s legal team has argued the university’s constitutionally-protected freedoms like free speech are being violated by the federal government. International students are already in chaos and fear heading into the summer and fall semesters, a Harvard official told the court before the hearing.
The Trump administration has used accusations of antisemitism and unfairness in faculty hiring and enrollment to threaten billions of dollars of funding for Harvard and notify the university it was pulling all student visa approvals as well as federal contracts and grants.
Separately, the university is suing over the administration revocation of more than $2 billion in grants. The grant funding case is also before Burroughs, an Obama appointee, and is set to move forward beginning next week through the summer.
“This is really about academic freedom at universities across the country,” one lawyer involved in the cases on the university’s side told CNN this week.
