Or it should be.
Recall that the Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has canceled Harvard University’s authorization to enroll foreign students over that school’s decision to not bother in any serious way to protect the safety and free speech rights of Jewish students and to keep enrolling “students” who then engage in anti-American and pro-terrorist riots, building seizures, and vandalism, along with its refusal to expel and bring charges against those “students” already enrolled who’ve engaged in those behaviors. These school administration decisions could rise to the level of civil rights law violations, similar as they are, to Columbia University’s decisions which has resuled in that school being charged by HHS with civil rights law violations.
Harvard’s situation:
Harvard enrolls about 7,000 international students—more than 25% of the student body—and like many US universities it relies on their tuition payments, which are often full-fee.
As Noem noted,
It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments[.]
This echoes SecState Marco Rubio’s acknowledgment that even getting a visa (student or otherwise) in the first place is a privilege and not a right. Both acknowledgments also carry the flip side that our government has no obligation to grant visas and no obligation to authorize colleges or universities to enroll foreign students.
Still, Harvard has filed an appeal to Noem’s decision and is seeking an injunction, trying to get a judge to once again dictate from the awesome heights of a district court knoll top what a coequal branch of our government can do regarding foreign policy. In his letter “to the community,” Harvard President Alan Garber wrote that the cancelation,
imperils the future of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams[.]
This is both cynically specious and wholly irrelevant. That Harvard has designed its business model to be so dependent on foreign student enrollment in no way obligates our government to allow such enrollment. Further, in no way do future “thousands of students” or “scholars” have any intrinsic right to a student visa, or any other form of visa.
The DHS decision here certainly should serve as a warning to others at colleges and universities, and at any other institution or enterprise, that coming into our nation for any purpose is a privilege and not a right, and that granting such a privilege incurs an obligation on the grantee to obey all of our laws, including the free speech rights of others and the sanctity of property, whether privately held or government held.
There is no part of Harvard’s argument that is relevant to the case. What matters—all that matters—is what does the law say? Is this cutoff permissible under existing law?
If the cutoff is permissible, then a non-activist judge who obeys our Constitution and his oath of office, must deny the injunction request. Harvard should have two basic choices: shape up and stop coddling rioters and vandals, or work to change the law.
Unfortunately, the case went before just such an activist judge. Federal District Judge Allison Burroughs has issued Harvard’s requested injunction staying the DHS cancelation.