KUALA LUMPUR: Chapman University in California, the United States, has joined a band of American universities suing the US government over a policy that could bar international students from studying in the country.
The move comes on the heels of a joint lawsuit filed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) against the Trump administration.
The new policy, which was issued by the US immigration and customs agency, is being viewed as a reversal of the federal government's policy earlier this year, when international students were allowed to attend online-only classes as colleges abruptly closed campuses because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The shift has enraged many educators and lawmakers, who say the new rule threatens to upend careful planning by universities and wreak havoc for the approximately one million foreign students who attend American colleges each year.
"Chapman University joined a coalition of 20 of the country's premier research institutions, liberal arts colleges and public universities in the West (Coast) that sued the federal government today to block the US Department of Homeland Security from revoking visas for international students whose studies will be entirely online in the fall (semester)," the university's president Dr Daniele C. Struppa informed the campus community in an email sighted by the New Straits Times.
"The government's thoughtless and arbitrary action not only harms these students, but also robs institutions of higher education of the autonomy and flexibility to adopt models of instruction to meet the urgent needs posed by a global pandemic," she added.
"Our more than 50,000 combined international students are an integral part of our communities and essential to our core missions.
"We are pursuing this case because all international students studying in this county deserve the right to continue their education without risk of deportation."
An analysis of student visa data revealed that in 2018, as many as 7,241 Malaysians were in the US studying at American colleges and universities.
The 159-year-old Chapman is home to approximately three Malaysian students, although through the years, it has hosted both Malaysian government-sponsored and private students at its main campus in the city of Orange, California.
Other universities which have joined Chapman in the coalition to sue the US government include the University of Southern California, University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Arizona State University, California Institute of Technology, Claremont McKenna College, Stanford University, Scripps College, St Mary's College of California and University of San Francisco.