Eighteen colleges and universities, including all Ivy League schools except Columbia University, are seeking to file a friend-of-the-court, or amicus brief, to back Harvard University in its ongoing battle with President Donald Trump over enrolling foreign students.
The schools supporting Harvard are: Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Oregon, University of Maryland-College Park, Tufts University, Rutgers University, Princeton University, Rice University, Oregon State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, Johns Hopkins University, Dartmouth College, Colorado State University, California Institute of Technology, Boston University, and Brown University, reported Politico senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein in an update on X on Friday.
Columbia also has been targeted by Trump after a series of pro-Palestinian protests on its campus last year.
The news on the amicus brief for Harvard comes after a federal judge Thursday night blocked Trump's proclamation banning foreign nationals from teaching or studying at Harvard, Politico reported.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, issued the temporary restraining order Thursday, instructing the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department to ignore Trump's order.
Four hours earlier, Harvard added claims about the proclamation to a pending lawsuit over a move to revoke a certification the school has held for more than 70 years to enroll international students.
In the amended suit, Harvard lawyers argued that Trump's actions were "not undertaken to protect the interests of the United States, but instead to pursue a government vendetta against Harvard."
Harvard is contending that Trump's actions are being taken in retaliation for its decision to fight rather than give in to his demands.
The administration claims the school has failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism, but Harvard said that the demands don't address antisemitism but are an attempt to control how the school is governed, its curriculum, and its students.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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