Or, y'know, to force Harvard to comply with the law and to protect Jewish students from assault and intimidation. Six of one, half-dozen of another, amirite? 

This may not have much effect at the moment on recruitment, since the State Department has suspended processing of all new student-visa applications to the US. It might help keep the nearly 7,000 foreign students on Harvard's campus for a while longer, at least until the Trump administration can appeal the decision. That may be trickier than the White House thinks, as the judge may have ruled that the enforcement action against Harvard by the Department of Homeland Security was politically motivated:

Lawyers for Harvard have argued that the Trump administration’s ban on international students at the school was illegal and a sign of a political crusade against the nation’s wealthiest university.

Citing a barrage of social media posts by President Trump that attack the university for its political ideology and professors, lawyers for Harvard had argued that the ban was unfounded and retaliatory. As evidence, they pointed to Mr. Trump’s own posts attacking the university on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The White House has run afoul of this problem in other cases as well. It may be persuasive to the First Circuit, which is also located in Boston. Harvard will have the home-field advantage in that sense until an appeal reaches the Supreme Court, where four of the justices got their law degrees from, er ... Haahvaahd. That includes Chief Justice John Roberts, of course.

That home-field advantage may not be dispositive in this case, but Trump's open animosity toward Harvard will cause him problems, Jed Rubenfeld warned this weekend at The Free Press. While acknowledging that his alma mater "went off the rails years ago" and desperately needs to reform itself, the politically punitive nature of this move by the Department of Homeland Security is too obvious and too far outside the statutory provisions for the program in question for any court to ignore, he argues:

Schools need a Student Exchange and Visa Program (SEVP) certification, a process overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, in order to obtain visas for international students and to enroll such students. As part of this program, schools have to report certain information about their international students, like whether they’re completing their coursework or whether they’ve engaged in misconduct. Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem says Harvard has failed to comply with this reporting requirement and, as a result, has forfeited its certification.

As a matter of administrative law, Noem’s position is not crazy, but it is unlikely to stand up in court. The information she’s asking for appears to go way beyond what the regulations require. For example, she says Harvard must report everything it knows about its international students’ illegal, “dangerous,” or threatening activity, and turn over any footage it has of international students engaging in any “protest activity.” The regulation, however, says a school must report on its international students’ disciplinary status and on any misconduct resulting in a criminal conviction for which they were disciplined, which is a very different matter (although there’s an argument that DHS can ask for more information than required). Moreover, Noem may not have complied with the process for revoking Harvard’s SEVP certification (although there may be an argument that this process didn’t apply here). These regulatory questions can get technical fast, but I doubt courts will find in the government’s favor.

Much more fundamental is the constitutional problem. The Trump administration does not seem to have done to any other school what it’s doing to Harvard. This is serious business.

I'm less impressed with this latter argument, for two reasons. One: Every plaintiff cries about "selective prosecution," but prosecutors are not required to prosecute every single instance to avoid that criticism. In this case, Harvard has been exceptionally obtuse on compliance with both the SEVP requests from DHS and the Civil Rights Act issues under Title VI regarding Jewish students on its campus (and faculty, for that matter). And Two: Harvard is the only school thus far to undergo this kind of action. DHS is very likely to do the same thing with Columbia soon, and with other schools that refuse to deal with foreign agitators masquerading as students to create havoc and intimidation on campuses. 

However, the problem is that the public comments from the White House meant to generate public support for these enforcement actions include complaints that go well beyond the specific violations cited. Trump and his team have made it clear that they do have a special animus with Harvard, in part for refusing to admit their sins and atone for them. In the White House this week, Trump publicly pledged to keep kicking Harvard's "ass" if they refuse to knuckle under. 

As long as the actions taken by DHS fall clearly within the statute, that may not matter to the Supreme Court. But as soon as those actions progress into novel and/or discretionary territory, that animus may prompt the court to sustain the intervention. Sometimes it's just better to let actions speak for themselves. 

At any rate, I suspect that this will be mooted at some point by other developments, most immediately at the State Department regarding student visas. Marco Rubio has much more plenary authority to restrict student visas in a more comprehensive way, as well as to look for nat-sec issues regarding specific countries on the front end rather than the universities they feed on the back end. And on the other side, the White House has the resources to fight Harvard for the next three-plus years, and some of the litigation will likely end up favoring the government -- mainly because Harvard has slid off the rails, doesn't comply with the law, and most importantly, doesn't have anywhere near enough political support amongst the Americans at whom Harvard generally sneers. They are not entitled to our money, nor do they have the resources to go through three years of this war with Trump.