Harvard and MIT said on Wednesday that they had filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over a directive that would strip foreign students of their visas if their coursework was entirely online.

The White House measure, announced Monday, was seen as an effort to pressure universities into reopening their gates and abandoning the cautious approaches that many have announced they would adopt to reduce transmission of the coronavirus.

“The order came down without notice — its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness,” Harvard’s President, Lawrence S Bacow, said.

“It appears that it was designed purposefully to place pressure on colleges and universities to open their on-campus classrooms for in-person instruction this fall, without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others.” Meanwhile, US Trump on Wednesday threatened to cut off funding to schools that do not open in the fall and criticised a federal health agency’s guidelines for reopening schools as “very tough and expensive.”

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