His administration has threatened to put US$9 billion ($15.1b) of Government funding to Harvard under review, then went on to freeze a first tranche of US$2.2b of grants and US$60 million of official contracts. It has also targeted a Harvard Medical School researcher for deportation.
“It is the latest act by the Government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the Government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students,” said the lawsuit filed in Massachusetts federal court.
The lawsuit called for a judge to “stop the Government’s arbitrary, capricious, unlawful, and unconstitutional action”.
The loss of foreign nationals, more than a quarter of its student body, could prove costly to Harvard, which charges tens of thousands of dollars a year in tuition.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller claimed that, in granting a temporary pause, “a communist judge has created a constitutional right for foreign nationals... to be admitted to American universities funded by American tax dollars”.
‘Unlawful and unwarranted’
Harvard president Alan Garber said in a statement before Burroughs’ order that “we condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action”.
“It imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams,” he said.
Noem had said Friday that “this administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, anti-Semitism, and co-ordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus”.
Chinese students make up more than a fifth of Harvard’s international enrolment, according to university figures, and Beijing said the decision will “only harm the image and international standing of the United States”.
“The Chinese side has consistently opposed the politicisation of educational co-operation,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
Harvard has already sued the US Government over a separate raft of punitive measures.
Karl Molden, a student at Harvard from Austria, said he had applied to transfer to Oxford in Britain because he feared such measures.
“It’s scary and it’s saddening,” the 21-year-old government and classics student told AFP, calling his admission to Harvard the “greatest privilege” of his life.
Leaders of the Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors called Trump’s action “the latest in a string of nakedly authoritarian and retaliatory moves against America’s oldest institution of higher education”.
– Agence France-Presse
