*UPDATE* Judge Allison Burroughs, who sided with Harvard regarding affirmative action, placed a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration, revoking Harvard’s SEVP certification.
Burroughs sided with Harvard, agreeing the school “made a sufficient showing that it has provided notice” to the administration that it would “sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”
The judge made the ruling without a Trump lawyer present. As I stated in my blog yesterday and today, DHS gave Harvard 72 hours to respond to requests.
As Margot Cleveland pointed out, there is “no reason the court couldn’t have set [an] afternoon hearing.”
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Harvard filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration for revoking its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification.
Harvard described the move as an “immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”
The Ivy League school accused the Trump administration of violating the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act.
“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission. Harvard’s certification is essential for each of Harvard’s thousands of international students to lawfully remain in this country while they complete coursework, obtain degrees, and continue critical research,” stated Harvard.
The Ivy League school cannot enroll foreign students. The foreign students enrolled at Harvard “must transfer or lose their legal status.”
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” stated DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
In April, Noem told Harvard to give the department “information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus.”
Noem told the university it would lose its SEVP certification if it did not comply.
Noem said Harvard’s counsel claimed he had the information for DHS, but did not.
The acting DHS general counsel gave Harvard another chance to hand out the required information, but it did not.
Harvard claimed in the lawsuit that it did not give DHS sufficient information:
Despite the unprecedented nature of this demand, HIO [Harvard Information Office] immediately began collecting responsive records from the information it maintains or keeps “accessible,” 8 C.F.R. § 214.3(g)(1), and, on April 30, Harvard produced that information to DHS. On May 14, Harvard also produced additional information in response to a follow-up request from DHS. Yet, on May 22, 2025, DHS deemed Harvard’s responses “insufficient”—without explaining why or citing any regulation with which Harvard failed to comply—and revoked Harvard’s SEVP certification “effective immediately.”
“DHS’s revocation letter leaves no doubt that the revocation is part of DHS’s campaign to coerce Harvard into surrendering its First Amendment rights,” insisted the school.
Harvard told the court that DHS’s actions match “the very definition and capricious agency action prescribed by the APA [Administrative Procedure Act].”
Noem told Harvard it could restore its SEVP certification if it answered the questions in her letter.
I won’t type them out again (go read them), but Harvard said none of the requested information “is not information that HIO is required to maintain or report to DHS under that provision.”
So, do you guys have it or not?
Then Harvard complained the requests didn’t have sufficient definitions:
The Records Request did not define any terms in these request—such as “known,” “illegal,” “dangerous or violent,” “deprivation of rights,” “threats,” or “obstruction of the school’s learning environment”—and did not specify a time period for which the specified information was requested. Yet it threatened serious consequences for noncompliance, for both the PDSO who would be responsible for submitting the responsive documents and Harvard itself…
Are you stupid? You need definitions for those words? They seem pretty obvious to me!
Also, considering Harvard has done nothing to protect its Jewish students, it doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Especially since Harvard claimed Noem’s request “offered no basis for the claim that Harvard ‘created a hostile learning environment for Jewish students.'”
Oh, you want to go there, Harvard? Let’s go there! I’m more than happy to shove in your face just some of the evidence against you because I don’t feel like writing a novel.
There is a difference between protesting and cheering on violence.
Protesting does not include screaming genocidal slogans. Protesting is not getting in the face of Jewish students and threatening them.
I mean, just look at Harvard in 2023 and 2024. Here are a few:
A year before the October 7, 2023, massacre: Harvard Ranks First in Anti-Semitic Incidents, According to Study
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