Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote a letter to Harvard University on Friday barring it from enrolling international students and ordering current international students to transfer elsewhere. The letter comes as an escalation of the current conflict between President Donald Trump and Harvard, which started when Harvard first refused to comply with a list of demands sent by the Trump administration, resulting in a $2 billion cut in funding. The administration’s goals were to root out what it sees as widespread antisemitism, while Harvard accused the administration of infringing on academic freedom. Trump has threatened Harvard with cutting another $3 billion in federal grants, and redirecting them to trade schools, saying the university has been "very slow" to supply a list of foreign students.
Trump’s battle with Harvard is part of a larger push led by the Trump administration to reorder the American educational system, including dismantling the Department of Education and cutting federal funding for research.
Some voices on the left described the Trump administration’s actions against Harvard as “illogical and deranged,” while some on the right called for them to be repeated for all other federally funded institutions. Across the spectrum, though, some argued that while elite colleges’ funding does need to be called into question, the way of which the Trump administration is executing it is unethical.
A Vox (Left) opinion read, “If the Trump administration expands its scorched-earth student visa strategy beyond Harvard, it won’t just be the liberal enclaves and snooty college towns that suffer. Communities across the country will feel the hurt, urban and rural, in red states and blue… And if international students stop coming to the US, it will be a catastrophe for American leadership in science and technology.”
A writer for National Review Opinion (Right) argued, “The real debate shouldn’t be over whether Harvard should keep its tax exemption. The real discussion should be about whether we should move to abolish all federal, state, and local tax exemptions for nonprofits — thus allowing us to cut taxes for all of us, without hurting charitable contributions.”
An article in The New York Times Opinion (Left) by Harvard professor Steven Pinker stated, “The nation desperately needs this sense of proportionality in dealing with its educational and cultural institutions. Harvard, as I am among the first to point out, has serious ailments… But Harvard is an intricate system that developed over centuries and constantly has to grapple with competing and unexpected challenges. The appropriate treatment (as with other imperfect institutions) is to diagnose which parts need which remedies, not to cut its carotid and watch it bleed out.”
A writer for The Dispatch (Lean Right) said, “No major research university has ever lost its ability to enroll international students, for political or any other reasons, and if established, the precedent suggests any future administration could hold international programs hostage to compel compliance with ideological demands… if administrative agencies can revoke operating licenses to compel ideological conformity, similar tactics could extend to hospitals, research facilities, or any institution dependent on federal certification.”
