As President Donald Trump and his team dialed up the pressure on Harvard University last month, threatening to bar its international students, the school issued what was at once a warning and a plea.

Experts and former officials said it was unusual for a cabinet secretary to try to influence the Treasury Department’s sanctions process to target a domestic entity.

The Sterling Law Building houses the Yale Law School in New Haven. Of the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, four graduated from Yale Law School, prompting some to urge President Joe Biden to appoint someone from a public-college background to fill an upcoming vacancy on the court.

Two dozen universities, including five Ivy League schools, filed an amicus brief, including six that joined the coalition in a filing Monday, court records show.

Harvard and the Trump administration have been locked in an escalating standoff. The stakes include billions of federal dollars and the fate of the school's international students.

Harvard commencement speaker is denying nepotism got her into university after a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation revealed

Eighteen universities — including five Ivy League institutions — plan to submit an amicus brief in support of Harvard’s legal challenge to the Trump administration’s freeze on nearly $3 billion in federal research funding.

Eisgruber, like many university leaders, has slowly taken steps to stand up for academic independence as the Trump administration has taken extraordinary moves to overhaul higher education, particularly elite schools.

Harvard University, which is currently embroiled in legal disputes with the Trump administration, has educated eight US presidents.