John Hopkins University (JHU) joined hands with other higher education institutions like Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to sue the Trump administration over changes to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.
Amid COVID-19, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced new Fall semester rules that raised concerns for both international students and universities. According to CBS, all foreign students with F-1 or M-1 visas are now required to take in-person classes to remain in the United States.
American Bazaar reported John Hopkins immediately filed a lawsuit in federal court on Friday, calling Trump administration’s ban on online-only foreign students “gratuitous, cruel and inimical.”
The education institution declared it had no choice but to join legal battle against this “unjust and discriminatory attack.”
In a message to the university community, JHU President Ronald J. Daniels explained, “The university was left with no option but to bring an emergency lawsuit in federal court to stop the administration from pushing ahead with an illegal and unconstitutional directive that, if permitted to stand, would fundamentally undermine the educational freedoms and humanitarian values that animate higher education in our country.”
In a 43-page lawsuit, JHU said the policy change forcing international students to go back to their home countries if they don’t enroll in in-person classes “suddenly and unexpectedly plunged Johns Hopkins — and virtually all of higher education in the United States into Chaos.”
The university also issued a statement saying that the policy change would “severely impact” approximately 5,000 international students at Hopkins alone, according to CBS Baltimore.
For months, JHU had planned to take a hybrid approach with a mix of online-only and in-person offering courses after negotiating the best way to operate classes with health professionals. However, the recent announcement by the ICE and the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Program left the university flustered.
Indian American JHU Provost Sunil Kumar said in a JHU Hub Staff Report, “This unjust and discriminatory attack on international students cuts to the core of our mission of education and research. It cannot be allowed to stand.”
As of now, JHU’s complaint that has been filed in US District Court in Washington DC, seeks a temporary restraining order against ICE.
Daniels stressed in a JHU Hub Staff Report that he expected the university’s requests to move very quickly up to preliminary injunctions as soon as next week.
Daniels added, “This country was built on the boundless spirit of innovation and discovery contributed by generations of immigrants and foreign-born scholars.”
As the US has the world’s largest international student population, Daniels emphasized that JHU will stand alongside the nearly 1 million foreign students placed in the US.
“The genius of American higher education lies in the extent to which it has fostered this spirit, reached out to the world, and welcomed international students and scholars to our institutions”, said Daniels.
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