A judge on Monday extended a temporary restraining order that halts President Donald Trump’s ban preventing Harvard University from admitting and hosting foreign students, part of the broader campaign against the elite institution.
Trump has employed a variety of measures aimed at stopping Harvard from enrolling international students, including attempts to remove the university from an electronic immigration registry and directing foreign embassies to refuse visas for prospective students wishing to study at the Massachusetts-based university.
In response, Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies, arguing these actions were unlawful and unconstitutional.
The university had already secured an initial temporary restraining order against the government, which federal Judge Allison Burroughs extended on Monday during a hearing held in Boston.
International students made up 27 percent of Harvard’s total enrolment for the 2024-2025 academic year and represent a significant source of revenue for the university.
“The court takes the matter under advisement. The current temporary restraining order will remain in place until 23 June,” the court clerk noted on the electronic case docket.
The pause on the Trump administration’s measures against Harvard’s foreign students will remain active until Judge Burroughs rules on whether to issue a longer preliminary injunction.
Harvard’s court documents claim that Trump’s actions are “part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government in clear retribution for Harvard’s exercise of its First Amendment rights, resisting government demands to control its governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”
Alongside the crackdown on international students, the Trump administration has also cut approximately $3.2 billion in federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard, while pledging to exclude the university from future federal funding.
Harvard has been a focal point in Trump’s broader campaign against top universities, especially after it refused to comply with his demands for oversight over its curriculum, hiring practices, student recruitment, and “viewpoint diversity.”
Trump and his supporters claim that Harvard and other prestigious institutions are unaccountable centres of liberal bias and anti-Semitism.
