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Over twenty former high-ranking government officials filed an amicus brief in support of Harvard on Tuesday, criticizing the Trump Administration’s appeal of a block on the international student ban.
The Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic at Yale Law School — a clinic which lists maintaining U.S. rule of law in national security as one of four practice areas — and Nystrom, Beckman & Paris LLP, a Boston-based litigation law firm, represent the group.
The amicus brief includes contributions from those who have served in the highest level of U.S. government positions specializing in intelligence, national security, and diplomacy. Signatories include Avril Haines, former director of National Intelligence under the Biden administration, and Susan Rice, former National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
A quarter of the group are Harvard alumni.
The amicus brief responds to a Trump administration appeal to the second of two preliminary injunctions granted by U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs in the past year.
The first was granted to block the administration’s first action against Harvard, which revoked the University’s ability to enroll international students this past May. The second was granted in response to the Trump administration’s June 4 proclamation that international students on Harvard sponsored F and J visas would not be able to enter the country.
A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment on the filing.
The amicus brief joins previous briefs filed in support of Harvard against the federal government. 12,000 Harvard alumni filed a June 9 brief asking a federal judge to protect Harvard from a federal funding freeze of over $2 billion in April.
But alumni are not the only ones getting involved. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell filed June 4 asking Burroughs to grant a preliminary injunction on top of the temporary restraining order she granted after the May 22 proclamation revoking Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification.
The amicus brief argues the administration’s rationale behind the entrance ban, which is based on national security concerns, is "fictitious.” Instead, the brief presents the ban as an attempt to “engage in retaliation.”
But the alleged national security concerns are not the only problem the brief cites. The lawyers write that the executive proclamation, which is titled “Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University,” is an unconstitutionally broad use of executive power to enact “punishment” on the University.
According to the brief, the President not only does not have the authority to enact the proclamation, but also is harming national security interests with “crude blanket exclusions” rather than “targeted approaches.”
The case is awaiting review in the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals. If it moves forward, judges on the Court will ask both parties to submit briefs and hear oral arguments before making a decision on the injunction.
—Staff writer Sheerea X. Yu can be reached at sheerea.yu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @_shuhree_.
