A United States judge on Friday, May 23, issued orders temporarily blocking President Donald Trump’s administration from revoking Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students.

In what is a reprieve for current and aspiring Kenyan students at the Ivy League institution, the decision secures the academic future of thousands of students who were being forced to transfer from the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university.

Kenyan students at Harvard University were among those set to be affected after the US government revoked the institution’s ability to enrol international students.

This followed an order by the Donald Trump administration directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to terminate Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification, meaning Harvard would no longer be allowed to enrol foreign students.

Aerial view of Harvard University in the United States.

Harvard

Current international students were to transfer to other institutions or risk losing their legal status in the United States, with the directive set to take effect in the 2025–2026 academic year.

This prompted Harvard to sue the Trump administration, asserting that “without international students, Harvard was not Harvard.”

In its complaint, Harvard said the revocation would force it to retract admissions for thousands of people and had thrown "countless" academic programmes, clinics, courses, and research laboratories into disarray, just a few days before graduation.

According to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Harvard had been accused of fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.

This came after Trump’s administration demanded information about the alleged criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus, to which Harvard refused.

According to Harvard, the revocation violated the US Constitution and federal laws, terming it a violation of the right to free speech as guaranteed by the US Constitution's First Amendment.

In the current academic year, Harvard enrolled 6,800 international students, making up 27 per cent of its enrollment. This was the highest rate of enrollment since the 2006/2007 academic year.

Kenya has had a history of having Harvard graduates, with notable alumni like former Central Bank of Kenya Governor Patrick Njoroge, Supreme Court Judge Njoki Ndung’u and veteran journalist the late Hillary Ng’weno passing through the Ivy League school.

Although the exact number of Kenyan students currently at Harvard is not known, statistics reveal that Kenya had 48 students at Harvard as of 2014. By 2018, this number had reduced to 35.

For some time, the dispute between Trump and Harvard has been brewing, with Trump recently freezing some $3 billion (Ksh 387B) in federal grants to Harvard, leading the university to sue to restore the funding.

Aerial view of Harvard University, US.

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Harvard University