NEW YORK—A court on Thursday put a temporary stay on Donald Trump’s latest effort to stop foreign students from enrolling at Harvard, as the US president’s battle with one of the world’s most prestigious universities intensified.
A proclamation issued by the White House late Wednesday sought to bar most new international students at Harvard from entering the country, and said existing foreign enrollees risked having their visas terminated.
“Harvard’s conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers,” the order said.
Harvard quickly amended an existing complaint filed in federal court, saying: “This is not the Administration’s first attempt to sever Harvard from its international students.”
“(It) is part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government in clear retribution for Harvard’s 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.”
US District Judge Allison Burroughs on Thursday ruled the government cannot enforce Trump’s proclamation.
Harvard had showed, she said, that without a temporary restraining order, it risked sustaining “immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”
The same judge had already blocked Trump’s earlier effort to bar international students from enrolling at the storied university.
The government already cut around $3.2 billion of federal grants and contracts benefiting Harvard and pledged to exclude the Cambridge, Massachusetts, institution from any future federal funding.
Harvard has been at the forefront of Trump’s campaign against top universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and “viewpoint diversity.”
Trump has also singled out international students at Harvard, who accounted for 27 percent of total enrollment in the 2024-2025 academic year and are a major source of income.