SCOTUS Previously Overruled Judge In Trump Harvard Case

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, who recently blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) effort to stop Harvard University’s enrollment of foreign students, is the same judge who was overturned by the Supreme Court for siding with the school’s racist affirmative action policies.

Burroughs, an Obama appointee serving in Massachusetts, has litigated several cases involving Harvard. In 2019, she ruled in favor of Harvard when they were sued by Students for Fair Admission over discrimination against Asian students. The Supreme Court overturned her decision in 2023, declaring race-based affirmative action unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.

Burroughs oversaw MIT and Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration in 2020. The universities sued the DHS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they tried to send home international students who were only taking online classes at American universities during the Covid-19 pandemic. ICE later rolled back this policy without a ruling from Burroughs.

Burroughs, at the request of Harvard’s attorneys, is also overseeing Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration for pulling the university’s federal funding. On May 23, she issued a temporary restraining order blocking the effort.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, gave Harvard 30 days to rebut the DHS’s alleged grounds for withdrawing certification from the school’s Student Exchange and Visitor Program. In a Wednesday letter to the university director of immigration services, Maureen Martin, Lyons cited Harvard’s failure to comply with DHS student records requests, failure to curtail violence and antisemitism on campus, and ongoing national security concerns as reasons for the withdrawal. Harvard has been a target of the administration for a variety of infractions since Trump’s second term began.

But on Thursday, Burroughs nonetheless extended her block on the DHS’s order to stop Harvard University’s enrollment of foreign students and said she plans to issue a preliminary injunction.

Burroughs continues to be one of many rogue judges trying to foil the Trump administration.

Though the Supreme Court and Congress seem uninterested in intervening, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted Thursday that the administration is making efforts to “tackle these rogue judges and the injunctions and blockades that we have faced.” She clarified that, by the president’s direction, the administration will comply with court’s orders while fighting them.

On Monday, Trump promised that he would win a fight with the courts and noted Harvard’s blatant judge shopping.

Currently, more than 200 lawsuits overseen by various district court judges stand between Trump and enacting the agenda that the American people voted for.