A US federal judge has overturned the ban on admitting foreign students to Harvard for the time being. President Donald Trump's administration may not lift the elite university's exchange programs, Judge Allison Burroughs' preliminary injunction said on Friday. The university had taken the Trump administration to court because it wants to revoke the visas of foreign Harvard students. Internationally, the government's actions were met with harsh criticism.
According to the court documents in Boston, Massachusetts, Burroughs instructed the Trump administration not to revoke the certification of Harvard's exchange program as announced. Otherwise, “irreparable harm” would be caused, the judge emphasized. She scheduled a hearing in the case for next week, Thursday.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem prohibited Harvard from accepting foreign students on Thursday. Students who are already enrolled should therefore change universities or lose their residence permit. Noem justified her action with the university's guidelines for equality and diversity as well as Harvard's “refusal” to create a safe environment for Jewish students.
Harvard took the case to the Boston court. The statement of claim referred to an “act of retaliation” by the Trump administration. The university had resisted the extensive controls demanded by the US President. An immediate ban on foreign students would also have affected hundreds of Germans. The Federal Foreign Office in Berlin announced swift talks with its partners in the USA. According to the Harvard website, 549 German students are currently enrolled at Harvard.
However, it is uncertain whether the Trump administration will comply with the federal judge's order. In other cases, the government has disregarded court rulings, even those of the US Supreme Court. Legal experts are therefore warning of an erosion of the separation of powers and a constitutional crisis in the USA.
The President of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK), Walter Rosenthal, accused the US of a “massive encroachment on academic freedom”. The actions of the US government are “very worrying”, Rosenthal told the AFP news agency. “Free access to academic institutions is at the core of the self-image of scientific institutions.” Federal Research Minister Dorothee Bär (CSU) criticized the US government's actions as “very, very bad”. She “very much hopes that the US government will reverse this decision”, said Bär on the sidelines of a meeting of EU science ministers in Brussels.
Trump and the elite university in the east coast state of Massachusetts have been engaged in a bitter dispute for weeks. The right-wing populist had described the university as an “anti-Semitic, far-left institution” and accused Harvard of tolerating pro-Palestinian protests on campus. As a result, his government has already cut Harvard's multi-year federal grants amounting to 2.2 billion dollars (1.9 billion euros), with a total of nine billion dollars under review.
However, Harvard - unlike most US universities - resisted the government's list of demands. These include ending diversity programs for students and employees, supporting the immigration authorities in screening students, screening students and employees for their "viewpoints" and restricting student self-government.
University President Alan Garber declared in mid-April that the institution would "not negotiate its independence or its constitutional rights."
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