NEW: Judge Halts Another Trump Administration Effort To Block Foreign Students From Attending Harvard – AP
A federal judge on Monday blocked another effort by the Trump administration to keep international students from attending Harvard University, saying officials’ “misplaced efforts to control a reputable academic institution” threatened freedom of speech.
The order from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston preserves the ability of foreign students to travel to the U.S. for study at Harvard while the case is decided.
President Donald Trump has sought to cut off Harvard’s enrollment of foreign students as part of a pressure campaign seeking changes to governance and policies at the Ivy League school. Administration officials also have cut more than $2.6 billion in research grants, ended federal contracts and threatened to revoke the tax-exempt status for the school Trump has derided as a hotbed of liberalism, according to the Associated Press.
The AP said that Trump has been warring with Harvard for months after it rejected a series of government demands meant to address conservative complaints that the school has become too liberal and tolerated anti-Jewish harassment.
Harvard President Alan Garber previously said the university has made changes to combat antisemitism. But Harvard, he said, will not stray from its “core, legally-protected principles,” even after receiving federal ultimatums.
