> In a news release, the Department of Homeland Security sent a stark message to Harvard’s international students: “This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.”
There is a mechanism for that transfer built into the visa, which could be used for example if your professor moved institutions and wanted to re-hire you to fulfil the original goals of your exchange program.
It's unclear if this affects all foreign academic staff, many of whom who would be on the J, or just the F visa.
Edit: apparently all exhange visas.
not that i agree with that anyways (citizenship is stupid, borders are stupid, countries are stupid blah blah blah) but it's pretty clear we're currently dealing with a regime that's willing to use ambiguous regulations in malicious ways (no comment on previous regimes, they're all bad, don't call me a HN Democrat or whatever).
This is going to burn the children of the most powerful families across the world. Monarchies, dictators, owners of international conglomerates, etc all send their kids to Harvard. Destroying their children’s education out of a fit of malice is going to haunt him, and America on top of all the other stuff America is doing to the world.
America first is rapidly becoming America alone.
https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5316202-future-queen-...
I doubt that most of those people are reliant on student visas.
When you frame it like this... it doesn't sound like such a loss. But yeah, it's not the only way to frame it.
I mean seriously, if a malicious saboteur was running things, what would the differences be?
Less obvious corruption.
So if you can find equally qualified American students on the margin shouldn't you do so? I think an American university that benefits greatly from American taxpayers and institutions should primarily benefit American students. If you're picking truly exceptional student, that's one thing. But I don't think that's happening.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/judge-blocks-tr...
> A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from terminating the legal statuses of international students at universities across the U.S.
Hopefully, though, this is an "escalate to deescalate" thing, and this whole discussion will become moot.
Does ICE just have full discretion over SEVP? Can they do this to any school for whatever reason they want?
[0] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05/22/harvard-university-loses...
[1] https://www.dhs.gov/publication/dhsicepia-001-student-exchan...
Harvard may argue that DHS’s request was overly broad, lacked due process, or sought information beyond what the law permits.
8 CFR § 214.3(g) and § 214.4(b), which require schools to maintain and furnish records “as required by the Service,” including disciplinary actions and other conduct relevant to maintaining status.
8 CFR § 214.3(l)(2)(iii) allows for withdrawal of certification if a school fails to “provide requested documentation” to DHS.
Not to mention other overly broad immigration laws
But given the laws on the books, DHS has broad authority to take this action.
Not arguing one way or the other just laying out the facts. This could have happened under the prior administration if the law was applied
If Harvard has maintained approval for international students, and Harvard's policies with respect to the approval haven't changed recently, then withdrawing approval would be arbitrary.
It will quietly be done, although likely in a way that make it look as if Harvard hasn't.
Look how China is dealing with Trump. Trump announces tariffs, China returns Boeing planes, tariffs somehow comes down.
Trump's history has shown that if you cave into his demands, he doesn't leave you alone—instead he starts demanding even more, since he knows you'll fold.
I didn't expect to see Harvard getting smacked around or humiliated like this.
Between Harvard, Yale, and possibly a few other schools, I thought they had influence throughout government. And that key figures in government were interested in maintaining and benefiting from that influence.
And a lot of that influence seemed aligned with national interests. (For example, getting things done with prestige connections, domestically and internationally. And the international diplomatic goodwill, when children of the world's wealthy and powerful go to prestigious schools in the US.)
Is some other faction at work now, or is it the same people as before? Are the power networks changing? If the distribution of power is changing, is it partly due to someone willing to sacrifice national power from which all parties benefited (and everyone else wasn't expecting that, or wasn't ready to defend against that from within)? Better questions?
What you describe is relatively recent development of US foreign policy. In 1959, John F. Kennedy purchased a copy of The Ugly American for all of his fellow US Senators. After Kennedy was elected, many foreign service programs were initiated to leverage soft power. That was JFK's legacy.
Prior to that, the US acted much in the same way as it is today. It came up with Bretton Woods, along with the UK. The people that ran the world were the Averill Harrimans and Prescott Bushes.
In 1956, the US basically told the UK it wasn't going to back the Prime Minister (Anthony Eden) with regards to the Suez Canal. That was probably a sobering indication that the UK was going to be a supplicant in the relationship. The US also returned Vietnam to France (as was policy after WW2), which of course precipitated 20 years of war in southeast asia.
The end of the WW2, and the discovery of the infiltration of Russian agents in the dead Roosevelt administration put Truman in panic mode. The iron curtain and cold war basically turned foreign policy into a huge power grab after the war to position against a perceived threat.
https://www.thehistoryreader.com/us-history/ugly-american-jf...
I will add a little nuance or my take. Balance as always is key. Toxic feminity or hopes/prayers/empathy holism alone is hardly an answer. Would it kill the dems to get some street smarts? No!
The simple answer is that they don't. Alumni are often in powerful positions, but even they are, that is very different from the school itself exerting influence.
But with the Trump admin, I've realized that just isn't the case. There's nobody who has the ability to rein this in.
Most presidents let the agencies run mostly unsupervised, it seems like. With the agencies now under heavy fire structurally, they may not be able to do what they would normally do to prevent this kind of thing.
I think the whole agency model gives the president way more power than they are meant to have. I guess this exists to serve as a form of blame laundering from the people without term limits to the guy with term limits? But if the president does not play ball, suddenly they have power over things congress would otherwise have power over. Oops.
1. As the US grew and the workload required to govern it grew, Congress' ability to directly and quickly manage the country was outpaced. Consequently, agencies served as the grease between Congress' high-level actions/funding and the low-level implementation.
2. Due to the ever-adversarial nature of Congress, it was recognized that most Congresses operated slowly, and consequently didn't have the capacity to micromanage at the level required for direct control.
3. Circa 1900, civil service reform by the then-progressive wing of the Republican party pushed for greater isolation of the expertise that drove good government outcomes (in civil service employees) from politicians (administrators).
The flaw Trump revealed was that the President has too much direct power over the civil service, if he chooses to ignore tradition.
This wasn't always the case, and laws that previously restrained the President's ability to fuck with the civil service were substantially relaxed in the 60s - 80s (?).
That's "institutional talk", which is not relevant when you have a "mad king".
Side question I've been wrestling with to whoever feels like commenting: At what point would you look at our current US situation and say "yep, we're now in a dictatorship"
As of now there's no way for the state to enact such a monopoly in the US.
And that’s good. There’s no denying that the executive branch (its agencies, officers, regulators, etc) is supremely powerful. The only question is whether the public have any democratic control over the exercise of that authority.
Even though he went to a prestigious school himself he's not the kind to make an academic pursuit resembling anything like truly sensible Presidents. The complete opposite of the league of actual accomplished Harvard men like Bush and Obama. What a weenie, Trump is probably just jealous and hates himself and everyone else because he'll never measure up to people having average-to-above-average intellect & integrity. Completely on brand to whine like a child with the most amplified voice he's ever had. So that's what he's going to do instead of something worthwhile for the citizens.
In the case of Harvard, I think the current observations are most consistent with the following: the Board of Trustees, faculty, and students have currently aligned in their goals - which we might summarize as (1) maintaining independence from the government and (2) the ability to hold/teach specific "controversial" viewpoints (benefits of diversity, anti-colonialism, potentially other "progressive" concepts). I suspect that within the factions the relative importance of these two goals is not balanced. The fact that the coalition has survived much longer than, e.g., Columbia, is somewhat surprising.
My suspicion is that the answer to your question is that the persistent "smacking around" is only in part due to the external factors other replies have mentioned. I think a major piece of the situation can be explained by a change in the power dynamic with the alumni. Under normal circumstances, the faculty presumably hope to maintain long lasting influence over their alumni, which the board of trustees leverage to bring in more money and influence to the university. The current situation suggests that the high-power/high-$$$ portion of the alumni who are in a position to leverage the public conversation about what's going on are not doing it. This implies that the strength of that edge of the power graph is much weaker than it was expected to be. I think it remains to be seen whether this is true. Further observations that would support that would be reduced donations, public complaints, etc. Conversely, increased fundraising and more public support would suggest the opposite.
The key point about the university power network is that USUALLY, the best situation is to avoid situations that actually reveal too much information. Everyone would prefer to believe they have more power than they do. Obviously the alumni are composed of factions, and presumably a large fraction of the potential participants are also members of other organizations with latent power networks and participating in this particular situation would involve expending capital in these other networks with potential reduction in power. Some alumni that have spoken up (i.e., Ackman) are clearly unaligned with the current coalition, and this MAY reflect the fact that the wealthy/powerful group of alumni that have sustained Harvard are really unhappy with the current stances of the university and would like it to shift (return?) to a different set of ideologies. But it's also possible that he represents a minority, and the rest are just nervous about getting involved.
My conclusion from this analysis is that things will persist as they have, with everyone who might be involved hoping that lawsuits will be successful in resolving the situation with the minimum of their involvement. If this approach is unsuccessful, I think we'll end up in a situation where we get a much better observation of the power balance between alumni, faculty, and board (I think the students rarely have as much power as they think they do!).
Funnily, 2 Harvard profs have written the easiest way for me to point out that the media / Information economy in America is broken. (Network Propaganda)
Which would explain why Alumni dont have power, or for that matter any experts. This is fundamentally why Trump is in power, and why decisions that have zero connection to scientific fact or even reality.
Either everyone starts talking in terms of the reality being litigated on Fox and other related networks on the Right, or people find a way to actually engage in a fair debate. Democracy is fundamentally conversation.
Shameless, wrong, and overtly illegal discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and creed, suppression of free speech, even the compelling of speech have all been de rigeur for Harvard for the past decade.
I just wish they would use a scalpel rather than a sledge hammer.
A regular corporation with the same fact pattern of discrimination would be looking at a billion+ dollar fine.
this is just Harvard losing some special privilges and being expected to act reasonably fairly like any other publicly funded institution.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-163976813
They're not actually so scientifically productive that we should tolerate discrimination in order to get the fruits of their research.
Harvard and Yale didn't hire the right lobbyists [0][1][2]
The other universities like Dartmouth, MIT, and public university systems did.
One of the side effect of being large endowment private universities meant Harvard and Yale remained extremely insular and concentrated on donor relations over government relations.
For example, MIT across town remained much more integrated with public-private projects compared to Harvard, and ime Harvard would try to leverage their alumni network where possible, but the Harvard alumni network just isn't as strong as it was 20 or 30 years ago.
Also, don't underestimate the Israel-Palestine culture war's impact on campus alumni relationships. Both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli campus orgs have continued to bombard me and other alumni to fight political battles against Harvard leadership for their side. Benefits of signing up to both Islamic orgs and Chabad to broaden my horizons back in the day I guess. Alumni from orgs on both sides are fine targeting the entire university, because fundamentally, Harvard is a very isolated experience where loyalty is to your house, a couple clubs, or your grad program - not Harvard as a whole.
And because Harvard has a lot of HNW alumni, they always try to meddle in some shape or form - Wen Jiabao's best friend funds the Fairbank Center, Kraft funds and hosts events at Chabad, some al Saud branches fund a couple Islamic clubs, a bunch of alt-right leaning Catholic traditionalists fund the Abigail Adams Institute, etc. It's just inter-elite fratricide at this point because no one truly gives a poo about Harvard.
Honestly, Harvard should prevent alumni from funding campus orgs, but they won't do so because donor relations.
[0] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-is-bombarding...
[1] - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/09/small-colleges-trum...
[2] - https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2024...
Edit: I am extremely pro-academic freedom. This move is a HORRIBLE affront to free speech and campus autonomy. My cynicism and disillusionment may sound like I support the move by the administration, but it is the complete opposite.
And your response is to dismiss it all as a kerfuffle over "bad lobbying" and "inter-elite fratricide"? Really?
Surely there are existing institutions of some form or another you'd like to see not made enemies of the state. You don't maybe see a principle at work here beyond your personal dislike of academia?
I don't think it's as simple as this. To my knowledge, Dr. Sian Leah Beilock handled the protests of the past 2 years much better than their counterparts.
When you put it like that... should I make some popcorn?
Turns out the "deep state" is just some made up bullshit to make people distrustful, angry, and easier to manipulate.
> Is some other faction at work now, or is it the same people as before? Are the power networks changing?
Nope, it's always been this dynamic. It's made of people after all. But that doesn't work as well to get people lapping up Trumpty Dumpty propaganda.
Major players, regarding the Gaza/Hamas issue:
- Harvard itself. The administration, not the faculty or students.
- The US Eastern Establishment, the Ivy League and its graduates. They once ran the US, and still run finance, but are less influential politically than a few decades ago.
- The Netanyahu faction in Israel. Understanding this requires more info about Israeli politics than is worth posting here. Wikipedia has a summary.[1] There are a huge number of factions. Netanyahu leads a coalition. The coalition seems to need an enemy to hold it together.
- MAGA. "Project 2025" is the MAGA playbook. Despite some denials, the Trump administration has mostly been following that playbook.
- Israel's lobby in the US, starting with AIPAC. American Jews as a group average left of center, but the Israel lobby is hard-right.
- Major donors to Harvard. Some are closely associated with the Israel lobby and vocal about it. Others aren't.
- The US courts. Anyone can bring a case to court, and courts have to do something about it.
- Trump.
Minor players:
- Fox News. 23 of Trump's appointees came from Fox News. The MAGA base listens to Fox News.
- The United Nations. Provides some aid, but hasn't been able to do more than that.
- US Congress. Has the real power, but is too divided to do anything with it.
- Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. They're the ones most affected, but lack any real power at this point. It's not even suggested that they be represented in international meetings.
Furthermore, they are effectively part of the Republican Party. So they create and maintain a political reality which is purpose built to achieve political goals.
The underlying assumption of western liberal democracies is that participants can figure things out together. You cannot figure things out when you have one side intentionally creating alternate narratives to stymie conversation and debate, to shore up negotiating power for the leaders of their bloc.
The prestige networks people perceive as existing are actually just plot devices for Hollywood.
Obvious answer is obvious.
I think there are almost certainly factions here. I personally think Trump is targeting Harvard because of the above reason. Overall I think the situation is quite bad but that isn't what you asked.
I'm reminded of the infamous George Carlin bit "It's a big club, and you ain’t in it"[1]. Maybe not anymore... and that's a most likely a good thing.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/964648-but-there-s-a-reason...
It is like getting Zuck to kneel and donate $1M. Once he did that, everyone else donated a $1M and peaced out.
* Trump does not care or maybe lacks the understanding of the concept of a network and influence with entities outside the U.s.
* Trump probably figures that he can use this as sort of leverage against negotiations with non-U.s. entities...but using a blunt instrument instead of nuance, or backchannels.
* Trump is foolishly following the guidelines from the architects of project 2025...whether those folks are educated enough to understand value of schools of higher educatioin, or worse, these architects fear having an educated population - regardless if that population are U.S. citizens or folks outside of U.S.
* Trump is behaving like a child having a tantrum, and is demolishing the "swamp" of current political arenas, and re-building it for himself/his party...and Harvard and other entities (that typically might be invited) are not invited in the upcoming new world order.
* Trump has little desire in any/all of this, and this is simply another stab at pushing the envelope of what the U.s. Executive branch can/can not do...much like a child who pushes boundaries to see how far they can get...and if no one pushes back/challenges (at least in meaningful ways), then they will keep pushing until greater power has been obtained.
...of course, it could be a combination of many of the above at the same time as well...and could be other stuff that i didn't note above too. In other words, welcome to the modern U.S. tyranny. ;-)
They may or may not be educated, but they're openly and actively against an educated populace for a multitude of reasons, from resistance to their ideas, to "get to work and start having babies for Christ". They will openly say that the first preference for a male school leaver/graduate should be to find a job, not further education.
1. Exert maximun possible pressure
2. Strike the best deal possible
Reasons only matter in the sense of selecting initial targets. Once into dealmaking, it's anything and everything thrown at an opponent.
You can see this in terms of what stops him: equal counterpressure (China) or consequences (US stocks and treasuries being dumped)
Similarly, once a deal is struck, reasons again don't matter.
Yes and this can't be overstated. Interests that were previously aligned are now going to fracture. Everything is up for grabs now.
1. Maybe most importantly, attacking academic institutions is part of the fascist coup playbook. [1] That could really be enough motivation on its own - these steps have lead to the desired outcome before, if you follow them closely enough they will probably work again. Just like the seemingly out-of-the-left-field framing of DEI, of all things, as the big Enemy that is corrupting art, science and the American people itself. It seems crazy, but notice how well it's working.
2. It's another vase to throw in the air, forcing you to catch it, cartoon-style. People who care and believe in process will spend time and energy going through the court system to limit the damage done, but the defenders will lag behind, their focus divided, while the attackers can just keep breaking bigger and bigger things, since they not care much what damage they do to people or their country.
3. It lets them target pro-Palestine protesters gradually starting from the most extreme. The genocide in Gaza can go a lot further. It is mutually beneficial for Trump, Netanyahu and Putin to divide both domestic and international outrage between them (see point 2.) By the time the full scale of the atrocities are clear, arresting and prosecuting protesters for "antisemitism" will be routine. And if you're not willing to stand up and protest, and therefore be removed, chances are you won't stick your neck out when they instate "temporary" changes to federal elections - only out of some extreme necessity, of course.
[1] https://perspectives.ushmm.org/collection/higher-education-i...
Here's the beginning:
WASHINGTON – Today, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered DHS to terminate the Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification.
This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.
Harvard’s leadership has created an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment. Many of these agitators are foreign students. Harvard’s leadership further facilitated, and engaged in coordinated activity with the CCP, including hosting and training members of a CCP paramilitary group complicit in the Uyghur genocide.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” said Secretary Noem. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments. Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused. They have lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law. Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.”
On April 16, 2025, Secretary Noem demanded Harvard provide information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus. Secretary Noem warned refusal to comply with this lawful order would result in SEVP termination.
This action comes after DHS terminated $2.7 million in DHS grants for Harvard last month.
Harvard University brazenly refused to provide the required information requested and ignored a follow up request from the Department’s Office of General Council. Secretary Noem is following through on her promise to protect students and prohibit terrorist sympathizers from receiving benefits from the U.S. government.
I think a fair answer might be that this immediate action is primarily about Israel, and Harvard's toleration and apparent support of organizations that the US government considers to be terrorists. Harvard has quite consciously taken an antagonistic approach here, and the government feels it is responding in kind.
Secondarily, it's about the way that elite schools have aligned themselves with the progressive politics associated with the Democratic party. Harvard is the target here because they are strongest, not necessarily because they are the most liberal. If the government can humble Harvard, they expect that all the weaker institutions will fold without a fight.
Remember when people were really mad about weaponizing the government? I guess that's okay now. Good to know.
Ackman voted for Trump in 2016.
However I don't understand how it's possible to single out a specific university.
Are there precedents for this kind of behaviour?
He's already done this to the Associated Press for ignoring his stupid Gulf of Mexico rename as well as to several law firms for representing democrats.
Even if it is illegal, does not mean that anybody will actually do anything about it beside challenging the administration in court and giving them a slap on the wrist at best.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/magazine/curtis-yarvin-in...
People who lived under authoritarian regimes have long said that things move slowly at first, but after an inflection point, get real bad, real fast. It's one thing to understand that intellectually, quite another to witness it first hand.
Hopefully, the judiciary will block this particular madness, but then again, given the concerted effort over the past decade by Republicans to appoint right wing judges, the odds are not that great.
If you want an indication why the US could go into dictatorship mode, look no further than to what is happening now. Dictatorship coups are extremely fragile in the initial phase. The very recent example is South Korea. It only takes a few determined people to sabotage the coup. In the same fashion, Trump would immediately stop if enough people were to take it to the street. So far, the silence is extremely loud.
It didn't. Conservatives in this country have explicitly been headed this direction since they decided to never let another Nixon happen. Not that they would prevent another criminal Republican. But they would ensure that Republicans are never punished for behavior like this. It led to Fox News and Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson, etc. The writing has been on the wall in plain sight for everyone to see for literally decades. The people who have been pointing it out and stating this is exactly where the country has been headed are called radicals and casually dismissed. The only reason Romney lost is because he didn't lean into the hatred his base was demanding[1]. Trump delivered what they wanted.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/romney-...
If anyone has any counterarguments, I would genuinely love to read them.
John McCain too ?
Most likely Harvard will try to fight it in court and then give in if they lose. It's not likely we see the future decertification continue into the academic year.
So people committing thought crimes huh?
This is the US in 2025 - indefinitely imprisoning people without any actual charges for having opinions the current administration doesn't like.
Will the people who had to transfer or leave be made whole? Even if a judge overturns this it will take time that the students impacted by this will have to pay, regardless of outcome.
There is little to no chance of this getting overturned.
It's crazy they're punishing tons of students who don't even have anything to do with these protests
Now, the Trump admin is not this careful, and many people who are not overt HAMAS supporters have probably been affected. But I wish to make the point that there is a substantial group of students (non-citizen HAMAS supporters) for whom punishment is not crazy.
They might prefer to start with certain targets, but all international students are target of opportunity [0] the same way they've attacked people with lawful residency.
[1] Though perhaps with some very particular and suspicious quasi-ethnic exceptions. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crljn5046epo
[0] Ex. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/us/immigration-green-card..., https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article304988381.html
The champions of One True America are just using international students as pawns to force Harvard's hand.
The longer something has been around, the more likely it's going to be around in the future.
That said, I personally believe Harvard's public reputation is significantly overstated - Stanford has become the new Harvard for at least 2 decades now.
They will be accommodated.
https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/schools/apply/getting-start...
As far as I can tell, the headlines are not quite accurate. From my reading, a more accurate description would be that one cannot obtain a student visa to go to Harvard.
So presumably, if someone could acquire legal residence in another way, they would be free to attend Harvard.
Foreign students normally enter via a non-immigrant visa (F1), or rather they are eligible to apply for that visa at an embassy, if a registered sponsor supports it. The visa permits a request for entry into the country for the purpose of study (at a port of entry). The most important document that you need day to day is a DS-2019 and you must remain "in F1 status" in the SEVIS system for the duration of your program. If you don't leave the US, you don't need another visa even if your original one expires, the university can issue you a new DS-2019 annually until your end-of-program date. That's up to 5 years dependent on the category. If you leave after your visa expires you have to renew it out of the country, which is normally straightforward (using the dropbox system).
The government has not prevented foreign people from studying or working at Harvard, they have withdrawn their ability to maintain status while at Harvard. Hence why they can transfer to another institution.
From a similar CNN article:
"Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered her department to terminate Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, making good on a promise made last month when she demanded the university hand over detailed records on its international students’ “illegal and violent activities” before April 30 or face the loss of its certification."
Okay, who could they possibly be talking about? Right. The Gaza protesters.
Miriam Adelson - $150m donated to Trump, second highest
Elon Musk is not the only one that bought the White House. So there is a genocide that if any of us tech people had some courage we could easily make some pretty wild visualizations of the before/after of Gaza maps, and the current full scale ethnic cleansing of it, but we can't bring it up. We're failing as tech people on this, but so is the whole world.
They’re trying to hit some targets for deportation numbers and shipping home “criminal” foreign students is an easy win.
It seems that what is portrayed as a dispute over Palestine, antisemitism and qamas is actually a cover for a power-struggle between the liberals and conservatives ( such as the Heritage foundation, Project 2025, and Yarvinites)
[1] - https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
[2] - https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
edit : But when i think of it more, maybe it is about Israel and Zionism but over a longer time-scale than recent events. If you look at some of the early anti-'woke' and anti-left movements like the self-proclaimed 'Intellectual dark web', lot of them are zionists who viewed the growing liberal disenchantment with zionism in the college campus and left-wing activism (including pro-palestine activism like the BDS movement) as an existential threat to Israel.
the core of free speech isn't if you can insult officers or similar in the larger picture irrelevant things, but the freedom of teaching, education, books etc. And freedom doesn't just means "its theoretical possible" but the absence of suppression, retaliatory actions and similar
> In a news release, the Department of Homeland Security sent a stark message to Harvard’s international students: “This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.”
So DHS revoked the visas for all existing students at Harvard? That doesn't seem quite possible?
Doesn't give them a timeline either.
The best and the brightest from around the world will prioritize top universities at other countries, and this will damage one of the US' biggest attractions and advantages.
Unbelievable.
I mean ... it's still nuts, but slightly different.
Instead of breaking the "keys" (visas) that unlock the doors to Harvard, they're just putting glue in the locks.
But, I suspect, if suddenly all international students transferred to MIT, the administration would simply do the same to MIT. So it would become one big game of whack-a-mole, and the smaller players would just bend over to the rules.
International students are cash cows for some institutions. They wouldn't dare to have that cow put down.
History is repeating itself as a farce. It's not wild speculation to guess what might happen if these actions continue unchecked. It's education now, but it will be lawyers and judges next, and after that it will be leaders of tech and business. Anyone who brokers power.
It already is this. Their attack on the judicial branch is the most frightening IMO, since it is directly attacking checks and balances.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/5/23/trump-admin-rev...
In the last three months, we've collected many data points which are each each further down a slope. I suggest the slope is slippery, and has a very unfortunate end.
__________
[Edit] Predicting a future that might resonate more with YC folks: "Pursuant to Trump Executive Order XYZ, you must submit regular firewall logs and social-media handles for activity by your staff. Failure to comply will result in losing the ability to post H1-B positions."
damn, Trump is really gunning for Harvard
not sure what rolling over for Trump looks like, but a lot of existing foreign students will be screwed unless something gives
So he has to deliver at least on two to have meaningful legacy. Because of the idiocy around tariffs - the economy at the midterms will be at best slightly above where he got it. So it leaves immigration and culture war. The border crossings are way down - so halfway there, but deporting meaningful numbers will be hard. Which means that he must deliver on the third issue big. So probably he will continue to bash the soft targets and the institutions that are perceived to be left leaning.
Sounds catastrophic!
Ah, at no risk are the books and papers, the famous research professors, and their late grad students, and apparently in simple terms (except for just money), that's about all such a university cares about.
So, not much of a catastrophe! Only partially sarcastic!
Judge blocks Trump administration from revoking Harvard enrollment of foreign students
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvard-sues-trump-administ...
The TRO:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.285...
Shameless, wrong, and overtly illegal discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and creed, suppression of free speech, even the compelling of speech have all been de rigeur for Harvard for the past decade.
I just wish they would use a scalpel rather than a sledge hammer.
The University (and many other universities) has been engaging in overtly illegal discrimination on the basis of sex, race, and creed in hiring, grants, and I'm sure many other areas. There were many job postings where the CVs of white men were never looked at, because of their skin color and sex. There were many grant-funded opportunities (often federally-funded) where a white man, or a man, or a straight person would not have a chance because of those characteristics. Oh, and I should mention "diversity statements", now called "belonging statements". These are political tests: regardless of your skin color and genitals, if you don't sing the right political song you have no chance. This was a first line assessment at many places (e.g., UC Berkeley). This was all overt in that it was openly talked about, people would send emails to the effect "this job opening must go to a brown woman", etc. People generally, somehow, even Americans, didn't understand it was illegal. I would be greeted with quizzical looks if I enlightened them! (in casual conversation, of course, never officially!). This is all for hiring and similar. Students are different, and since the end of affirmative action Harvard has still been doing everything it can to continue discriminating against e.g. East Asians and Whites, which is of course illegal.
You risked losing your job for expressing an uncool belief (e.g., Carole Hooven: https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2024/02/15/carole-hooven-wh...). Of course, they will try to force you to resign before actually firing you, which would leave open the possibility of legal problems. This may be a sort of "why not, it's a small thing, just say it" to a chemist, but to an endocrinologist or social scientist it can be intolerable.
Compelled speech was on the table, too, which is a bright line we have so far, as a society, have managed not to cross. Harvard and other elite universities were crossing it, and the Biden admin's Title IX rules overtly crossed it (by forcing you to use someone's preferred pronouns). A bad look, to put it mildly.
Previous admins didn't withhold billions in funding that was already granted, threaten 25% of its student body with expulsion, and try to take away its tax status.
Source?
Let’s throw that all away because learning is liberal.
I want to note that when Brexit happened EU citizens had about 2 years period to move to UK and just like that get their full rights there and those with enough years of stay had the right to obtain British citizenship. Streamlined process through scanning your id using an app, little to no hassle.
IIRC half of the EU citizens left despite having all those rights and streamlined bureaucracy. My observation was that those desperate or those who ware having their perfect life stayed, those who had other options left UK because it wasn't worth the stress and you future being bargaining chips for politicians.
I bet you, if this continues for some more time USA will no longer receive the best and the brightest. Those have options and their parents will prefer the options where their golden kids don't risk being subject to life changing actions or even abuse.
(/s in case it wasn't obvious)
Makes me think of:
"Reality has a well known liberal bias" - Stephen Colbert
The amount of "burn it all down because I don't like the people that like this thing" is depressing.
>The right-wing conspiracy behind Trump’s war on Harvard
>Back in 2021, far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin, who supports abolishing American democracy and replacing it with a dictatorship...
>...“the real power centers” in the US — the elite media and academic institutions exemplified by “Harvard and the New York Times” — would fight back.
>“That’s right,” Yarvin agreed. “That’s why, basically, you can’t continue to have a Harvard or a New York Times past the start of April.” https://www.vox.com/politics/409600/trump-harvard-rufo-yarvi...
Not sure if that is what's behind it?
I don't think Trump is really running the show here.
Vance literally defended the eating cats and dogs lie during the debate. The entire fucking point of this platform is to fuck the immigrants, legal or otherwise.
Or is this actually a surprise to anyone with half a brain?
J.D. Vance gave a big speech at the Nationalism Conservatism Conference titled "The Universities are the Enemy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FR65Cifnhw
Destroying universities has been his schtick since long before he was a VP candidate.
He has stated that he believes 4-year degrees make people dumber.
I'm constantly amazed by how many people don't know that waging wars on Universities has been Vance's thing for years.
Party doesn't matter. Ds need to inform their R Congresscritters every bit as much as any other combination.
For what it's worth, Republican constituents overwhelmingly voted for Trump in the R primary. Any number of candidates would have provided boilerplate Republican policies, but that wasn't what they wanted.
What Trump is doing is what these voters want.
And there's no limit. It's become an illiberal pro-authoritarian movement. It's in-progress.
Pick something you care about and defend it. It can't be everything all at once at all times, no one can do that.
Republicans and Trump-voting independents signed up for this. They want to see Harvard treated the same way it treats others.
As someone with some "right-leaning" views I am indeed very sad that the US is losing our edge as an international destination for higher education but I do want to see major reforms at elite institutions. I don't see a good way to accomplish these reforms without being willing to go after institutions in the only way they really care about (hurting the budget). I think we would reach a better place if we could agree to compromises where the universities concede on the "less important points" (e.g. make an earnest effort to drop everything the right calls DEI and reduce the administration to student ratio back to ~1980 levels) while the right agrees to leave funding and privileges in place but if we cannot compromise then we unfortunately end up in a position that is worse for everyone. I suspect most of the left will blame the right for being unable to compromise while most of the right will blame the right but this is kind of the same theme for every major party-aligned disagreement.
That being said, republicans decided to chose an M1 Abrams tank to kill the pesky mice in the system.
The people running Y Combinator? They'll donate a few million to the Trump fund, maybe donate a jet or two and hope that gets him to stop for a little bit while claiming this 'isn't what we stand for' and 'i can't believe this happened (to us)'.
Make no mistake, they have no problem with these decisions until it has direct and material impact on them. That's why they invite the people directly responsible for this to their AI Startup school and give them privileged speaking opportunities. They don't care nor do they think that far into the future. Hell, you can go to the AI startup school page now and see them sharing the AI Ghibli shit [1]
During the pandemic, the remote first model lead to a number of fairly successful early stage investments such as Orange Health and BharatX
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-3351-...
I still haven't found a valid argument for why a voter isn't held responsible for the actions of representatives. Especially if the actions would be likely to occur.
Edit: If by "hold responsible" you mean "be mad at them" then yes, of course you can, I can't read a comment section that isn't mostly that, and you knew that before making this comment.
Voters don't really choose a representative. They are given choices. Two choices, of which, let's face it, most people will just pick whichever one is on "their side". Those choices are created by outside forces. And those choices, once chosen, will do... whatever the hell they want. There's no consequence to them doing whatever the hell they want. So it doesn't really matter what the choice is to begin with. You're as likely to get what you want by praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster as by voting. The "choices" are just gonna do whatever the hell they want anyway. Whether you get what you want or not is incidental.
But let's assume you do hold somebody responsible for choosing something they have no control over. What does that mean to "hold them responsible" ? You gonna actually do something? Throw them in jail? Kill them? Probably not. You're probably just gonna say nasty things about them on Facebook. Which you could do at any time, for any reason. So who gives a shit what the argument is? It makes no difference to anything at all. You might as well ask for a valid argument for why the sky is blue. Ain't gonna change the sky.
Does that apply to Gaza as well? Or is it just when people you don't like vote?
There is a reason we don't do this, why we didn't punish everyone who voted for Hitler etc.
MAGA destroying universities smh.
And yes, Harvard is absolutely a morally dubious institution. Less morally dubious than Trump's movement is, but still.
Trump is simply saying let's focus on our own people.
Which means Harvard leadership actually has more reputation to gain by fighting this than by backing down, very similar to all those tariffed countries.
