Getty imagesIn the last climbing of his quarrel with Harvard University, the Trump administration Revoked the school’s ability to register foreign students Frequenting school on visas. Harvard responded with a trial and the rule was temporarily blocked.
The University of Harvard is the most eminent university institution to face the anger of the Trump administration – and the most important so far to repel.
The legal battle, closely monitored by other American universities and the thousands of foreigners who study there, will be brought before a federal judge in Boston, who will hear arguments on Thursday If you have to continue to block Trump administration policy.
There are two main questions at stake, say the lawyers.
Are Harvard’s participation in the government’s participation in the student visa program under the law?
And, are these reasons legitimate, or simply a pretext to punish Harvard for a discourse protected by the Constitution that the administration does not like?
While legal experts agree that the Trump administration could lose if the courts find that it targets Harvard for ideological reasons, the government has taken measures that could help it prevail – with broader and thorny implications.
Taking advantage of the test of strength is a more important question: can the American government dictate what universities can teach, which it can hire and which can register?
“This could be the type of case that could, on a rapid basin, circulate from the district court to the first circuit of the Supreme Court of the United States,” said Aram Gavoor, Doyen associated with the George Washington University Law School and former lawyer for the Ministry of Justice.
How much power does the government have to revoke Harvard visa certification?
America’s academic visas on which students, researchers and international teachers count to study in the United States are supervised by the Customs Immigration and Application Agency (ICE), a subsidiary of the Ministry of Internal Security.
To participate, universities must receive DHS certification via the Student and Exchange Visitor program (SEVP). Last week, the government revoked Harvard SEVP certification, to eliminate its ability to welcome international students and researchers.
“In terms of general authority of the DHS, it is quite strong. It is a certification agency for this program and there is a variety of bases on which the award can take place,” said Gavoor. The courts tend to be also deferential at the agency.
“There are certain limits, however,” he said.
The first amendment of the American Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression for individuals as well as for societies and entities like Harvard, is a powerful protection – and that which Harvard invoked again and again in his trial.
If the judges determine the base of the DHS to withdraw Harvard certification derives ideological differences and violates the rights to the freedom of expression of the university, the court could rule against the government.
“Many things will realize if the courts conclude if the first amendment is involved here,” said Gavoor.
Free existence and anti -Semitic concerns
References to the so -called Harvard ideological tendencies appear in the letters and declarations of the Trump administration – perhaps problematic for the White House before the courts, according to legal experts.
A letter of April 11 ordered the University to modify important changes to its operations, in particular by being the subject of a third party “to audit the student body, the teachers, the staff and leadership for the diversity of points of view”.
President Trump attacked Harvard on Truth Social for “hiring almost all awakened, radicals on the left, idiots and” Birdbrains “. A separate article has called upon university to lose its tax exemption status “if it continues to push political, ideological and terrorist” disease “.
In his May 22 at Harvard announced on the eligibility of student visa, the interior security secretary, Kristi Noem, said that Harvard was “hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies and employs” diversity, equity and racist inclusion “.
Harvard maintains that the actions of the Trump administration do not consist in fighting anti -Semitism or ensuring the safety of the Americans.
The revocation of Visa certification is “the last act of the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its first amendment rights to reject the government’s requests to control Harvard’s governance, the study program and the ideology of its teachers and students,” said school in its trial. He also alleys that the government violated Harvard’s right to regular procedure and ignored the appropriate procedures to take measures against it.
“The administration clearly indicates that he is going after Harvard due to points of view that he attributes to students and teachers of Harvard and the institution itself,” said Will Creeley, legal director of individual rights and expression.
“The smoking pistol is indeed very smoked, it’s right there,” he said.
Harvard must comply with the federal laws of non-discrimination which have prejudices according to race, sex, national origin or other protected classes, but “this does not mean that the federal government can dictate an acceptable pedagogy in Harvard classrooms,” he said.
Decades of legal precedent and a critical decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of 1957 underlies this concept, said Creeley.
Could Trump administration win?
Despite Harvard’s argument, the nuances could complicate his case.
The United States historically exceeds potential international students for points of view that it considers dangerous, which could allegedly include terrorist or totalitarian regimes. In the past, communist trends have been used to ban foreign academics from the United States. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against Jewish students.
The letter from secretary Noem to Harvard in May invokes these concepts to justify the shooting certification, which means that he could “read in a way where all this conduct is potentially illegal” on the part of the university, said Mr. Gavoor.
“The government could win here,” he said.
Even if a judge prohibits visa policy, Trump may have already won by scaring international registrations, said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an immigration lawyer representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a high-level expulsion case.
“It is similar to self-carrying. They want people to meet,” he said.
On Wednesday at the White House, President Trump launched the idea of capping international students 15% of the Harvard student body.
“We have people (who) want to go to Harvard and other schools,” he said. “They can’t come in because we have foreign students there.”
