Princeton has again joined 30 other colleges and universities in submitting a friend-of-the-court brief challenging the Trump administration's ban on entry into the United States by people from six Muslim-majority countries.
On Monday, Sept. 18, Princeton and the other schools filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court. The court is scheduled on Oct. 10 to hear oral arguments in the matter, which stems from the Trump administration's revised order in March to block citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States.
Federal appeals courts blocked the revised travel order from taking effect, but the Supreme Court ruled in June it could move forward on a limited basis.
The travel ban “both threatens American higher education and offends important, defining principles of our country,” the colleges and universities say in the brief. "The Order directly threatens amici’s ability to attract persons not only from the six specified countries, but from around the world. The Order contradicts the values that American colleges and universities have traditionally touted as benefits of studying and working here, including the freedom of religion and equality embodied in the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”
The same colleges and universities submitting the Supreme Court brief filed a brief in March with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit after the Trump administration appealed a Maryland federal judge’s nationwide preliminary injunction against the travel ban. Likewise, they submitted a brief in April with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in connection with a similar challenge before that court. Both of those cases are now before the Supreme Court, where the colleges and universities have filed this latest amicus brief.
Joining Princeton in the brief are Boston University, Brandeis University, Brown University, Bucknell University, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Emory University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Middlebury College, Northeastern University, Northwestern University, Rice University, Stanford University, Tufts University, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University, Washington University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Yale University.
