Friday, May 23, 2025

Harvard, keep your Elbows Up!

So the Trump administration is trying to wreak its vengence on Harvard for lèse-majesté -- they wouldn't knuckle under to the Orange King and his MAGA knuckle-draggers.  
Searching for excuses to deport anyone brown, the Trump administration has seized on last spring's pro-Palestinian protests at universities to target international university students and kick them out of the country - they're highly visible, outspoken, easy to find, easy to target, non-violent, and MAGA hates them anyway for their supposed "elitism". Associated Press reporters Collin Binkley and Michael Casey / Toronto Star (gift link) provide a broader context:
Trump administration bars Harvard from enrolling foreign students
The Secretary of Homeland Security accused Harvard of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”
...The Trump administration’s clash with Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, has intensified since it became the first to openly defy White House demands for changes at elite schools it has criticized as hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism. The federal government has cut $2.6 billion in federal grants to Harvard, forcing it to self-fund much of its sprawling research operation. President Donald Trump has said he wants to strip the university of its tax-exempt status.
The administration has demanded records of campus protests
The threat to Harvard’s international enrollment stems from an April 16 request from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who demanded that it provide information about foreign students that might implicate them in violence or protests that could lead to their deportation.
In a letter to Harvard on Thursday, Noem said the school’s sanction is “the unfortunate result of Harvard’s failure to comply with simple reporting requirements.” It bars Harvard from hosting international students for the upcoming 2025-26 school year.
Noem said Harvard can regain its ability to host foreign students if it produces a trove of records on foreign students within 72 hours. Her updated request demands all records, including audio or video footage, of foreign students participating in protests or dangerous activity on campus.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem said in a statement.
The action revoked Harvard’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which gives the school the ability to sponsor international students to get their visas and attend school in the United States.
Harvard President Alan Garber earlier this month said the university has made changes to its governance over the past year and a half, including a broad strategy to combat antisemitism, but warned it would not budge on its “its core, legally-protected principles” over fears of retaliation. He said he wasn’t aware of evidence to support the administration’s allegation that its international students were “more prone to disruption, violence, or other misconduct than any other students.”
Students in Harvard College Democrats said the Trump administration is playing with students’ lives to push a radical agenda and to quiet dissent. “Trump’s attack on international students is text book authoritarianism — Harvard must continue to hold the line,” the group said in a statement.
The administration drew condemnation from free speech groups, including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which said Noem is demanding a “surveillance state.”
“This sweeping fishing expedition reaches protected expression and must be flatly rejected,” the group said in a statement.
The revocation opens a new front in a closely watched battle
Many of Harvard’s punishments have come through a federal antisemitism task force that says the university failed to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence amid a nationwide wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Homeland Security officials echoed those concerns in their Thursday announcement. It offered examples, including a recent internal report at Harvard, finding that many Jewish students reported facing discrimination or bias on campus.
It also tapped into concerns that congressional Republicans have raised about ties between U.S. universities and China. Homeland Security officials said Harvard provided training to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps as recently as 2024. As evidence, it provided a link to a Fox News article, which in turn cited a letter from House Republicans.
Asked for comment on the alleged coordination with the Chinese Communist Party, a Harvard spokesperson said the university will be responding to the House Republicans’ letter.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called the latest action an “illegal, small-minded” overreach.
“I worry that this is sending a very chilling effect to international students looking to come to America for education,” he said.
The Trump administration has leveraged the system for tracking international students’ legal status as part of its broader attempts to crack down on higher education. What was once a largely administrative database has become a tool of enforcement, as immigration officials revoked students’ legal status directly in the system.
Those efforts were challenged in court, leading to restorations of status and a nationwide injunction blocking the administration from pursuing further terminations.
There are hundreds of Canadian students at Harvard, including Prime Minister Carney's daughter. 
Joe Friesen at The Globe and Mail (gift link) reports on some reactions:
... Thomas Mete, who just completed his third year at Harvard, said a group chat of Canadian students at the school reacted nervously to the Trump administration’s announcement Thursday.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty right now around this situation,” he said. “There’s really no indication of what is coming next.”
Mr. Mete said many students are of the view that the university will pursue some sort of legal action that could forestall the administration’s efforts, but it will be a nervous few months as the situation evolves.
“I love Harvard. These past three years have been amazing. I‘ve been able to meet with professors at the top of their field, as well as other students and friends who push me each day,” he said. “So that makes it even more disappointing to hear that I may not be able to go back to my senior year.”
Ethan Jasny, a fourth-year student from Vancouver, is expecting to graduate next week. He said many of his classmates are worried about what this news will mean for their status, or whether they’ll be able to graduate at all.
“I‘m just really saddened, and I‘m scared for my friends,” Mr. Jasny said. “There’s been all these attacks on Harvard and threats to revoke funding, but preventing internationals from attending would be, I think, an existential threat to the university.”...
A federal judge has now ruled that DHS can't revoke the legal status of international students "arbitrarily and capriciously", so this will be going to the Supreme Court (four of whom went to Harvard): Here are some of the reactions in Canada:
We already had news that three Yale professors are moving to the University of Toronto, but now Canada is inviting Harvard university to come with them:
Come for the butter tarts!
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Some other comments:
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This is fascism.👇

- Joe Walsh

Read on Substack

I’m feeling guilty. I can turn off American media and retreat from the dystopian nightmare that is now the US to the relative calm that is Canada. Americans of good heart cannot so easily escape the cruel insanity of their reality. We cannot be smug, however, or complacent in our Canadian normalcy. MAGA-influenced lunacy is oozing through the cracks of our foundation, and we must stand strong in our resistance. #NeverPoilievre #Never51 #CanadaStrong

- Joanne Pettis

Read on Substack

And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if this turned out to be true:
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