Meanwhile, law firms such as Paul, Weiss and Skadden Arps agreed to provide free legal services to causes Trump supports. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed Harvard’s lawsuit.
“If only Harvard cared this much about ending the scourge of anti-American, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist agitators on their campus they wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with,” Jackson said.
“Harvard should spend their time and resources on creating a safe campus environment instead of filing frivolous lawsuits,” she added.
She said the termination was justified because of Harvard’s “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.
The revocation follows Noem’s demand on Apr 16 for a large trove of information from Harvard about student visa holders.
In a letter to Harvard, which was attached to the complaint, Noem said the information was needed because the university had “created a hostile learning environment for Jewish students due to Harvard’s failure to condemn antisemitism.”
On Thursday, Noem said Harvard could restore its certification by turning over within 72 hours a raft of records about international students, including video or audio of their protest activity in the past five years.
HARVARD DEFENDS “REFUSAL TO SURRENDER”
Homeland Security’s justification is “the quintessence of arbitrariness,” Harvard said in its complaint.
In his letter on Friday, Garber said Harvard responded to Homeland Security Department requests as required by law.
In a letter to the Harvard community, the school’s president Alan Garber condemned the administration’s actions.
“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body,” Garber wrote.
Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in its current school year, equal to 27 per cent of total enrollment.
In its complaint, Harvard said the revocation would force it to retract admissions for thousands of people, and has thrown “countless” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories into disarray, just a few days before graduation.
Harvard called the revocation “unlawful many times over”, saying the government violates the First Amendment by using coercion to police private speech and forcing universities to surrender their academic freedom.
