Harvard graduation overshadowed by Trump threats

Harvard graduation overshadowed by Trump threats

Graduates gather for the commencement ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Thousands of Harvard students in crimson-fringed gowns celebrated their graduation Thursday, as a judge extended a temporary block on Donald Trump's bid to prevent the prestigious university from enrolling international scholars.

Trump has made Harvard the central target of his campaign against elite US universities, which he has also threatened with funding freezes over what he says is liberal bias and anti-Semitism.

Judge Allison Burroughs said she would later issue a preliminary injunction that "gives some protection" to international students while the sides argue over the legality of Trump's stance.

"Our students are terrified and we're (already) having people transfer" to other universities, Harvard's lawyer Ian Gershengorn said during the hearing in Boston. 

In an eleventh-hour filing ahead of the hearing, the Trump administration issued a formal notice of intent to withdraw Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students -- kickstarting the process.

The filing gave Harvard 30 days to produce evidence showing why it should not be blocked from hosting and enrolling foreign students -- who make up 27 percent of Harvard's student body.

Burroughs had already temporarily paused the policy, extending that pause Thursday pending the new injunction.

She said she would seek to determine whether the actions of Trump's officials had "a retaliatory motive."

A law professor present in the packed court said the Trump administration was prolonging the suffering of students.

"Harvard is in this purgatory. What is an international student to do?" said the Harvard Law School graduate, who declined to be named.

- 'Pride and approval' -

There also remained "this specter of other actions" the government could take to block Harvard having international students, she added.

The Ivy League institution has continually drawn Trump's ire while publicly rejecting his administration's repeated demands to give up control of recruitment, curricula and research choices.

"Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect, and all they're doing is getting in deeper and deeper," Trump said Wednesday.

Harvard president Alan Garber got a huge cheer Thursday when he mentioned international students attending the graduation with their families, saying it was "as it should be" -- but Garber did not mention the Trump fight directly. 

He received a standing ovation, which one student told AFP was "revealing of the community's pride and approval."

Garber has led the legal fightback in US academia after Trump targeted several prestigious universities -- including Columbia, which made sweeping concessions to the administration, hoping to claw back $400 million of withdrawn federal grants.

He has acknowledged that Harvard does have issues with anti-Semitism and that it has struggled to ensure that a variety of views can be safely heard on campus.

Graduating student Uzma Farheen, from India, obtained a Master of public health and said the day was one of "love for the global community."

"We stand united to powerfully represent what Harvard stands for -- truth, integrity, and inclusion," she told AFP.

Ahead of the ceremony, at which stage and screen star Rita Moreno was awarded an honorary degree, members of the Harvard band in crimson blazers filed through the narrow streets of Cambridge.

In front of a huge stage, hundreds of students assembled to hear speeches, including one entirely in Latin, in a grassy precinct that was closed off to the public for security.

Many students from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government carried inflatable plastic globes at the ceremony to symbolize the international makeup of the school's student body.

"In the last two months it's been very difficult, I've been feeling a lot of vulnerability," said one such student, Lorena Mejia, 36, who graduated with a Master in Public Administration and proudly wore robes identifying her as a Colombian.

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Originally published as Harvard graduation overshadowed by Trump threats