Harvard, MIT sue Trump administration

Harvard and MIT sue Trump administration for the new guidelines laid by the government regarding student visas. The American adminstration put forth some new guidelines for the international students on Monday, which were much frowned upon.

The new guidelines by the ICE say that the international students of the institute which will go completely online this fall semester cannot be in the U.S. and the students of the institutes which offer hybrid courses, part online-part offline, must be present in the country. The students and universities highly criticized this and deemed it as extremely cruel and reckless. These guidelines will build unnecessary obstacles in the academic careers of the newcomers as well as the existing international students.

It is widely interpreted that these rules were made to encourage the schools to open for offline classes. “The political intent cannot be clearer, they want to force campuses into the position they have to declare themselves open, or at least in a hybrid model.” said Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. In that case, the government is surely not paying much heed to the safety of the students, in the times of a pandemic.

Also considering the fact that many students also do part-time jobs to afford a comfortable living; dragging out the international students with online classes will only make their situation worse. Since, the colleges having online classes only, will not be having any reduction in the fees. And the part-time jobs of the students provide atleast, say, their tuition fees.

The loss to universities

Harvard and some other reputed universities are planning to have online classes the entire year. MIT has some specific in-person classes, but most of the courses will be online. Some of the other universities are also planning to have a hybrid model of offline and online classes. This will surely affect the new admissions probably in a downgrade.

About 12% of Harvard undergraduates and 28% of those in graduate and extension programs are international; at MIT, international students make up 10% of the undergraduate population and 41% of the graduate population; as mentioned in the wall street journal.

Harvard and MIT sued Trump administration on Wednesday. ICE, its parent agency the Department of Homeland Security and their acting leaders are named in the suit. The suit, however, seeks a temporary restriction in the implementation of the orders stated on Monday.

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