Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students under threat as Trump attacks escalate
Washington DC - The Trump administration said Wednesday it would stop Harvard University from enrolling foreign students if it does not agree to demands that would put it under political control.
President Donald Trump is furious at the storied university – which has produced 162 Nobel Prize winners – for rejecting his request to submit to oversight on admissions, hiring, and political slant.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also canceled $2.7 million worth of research grants to Harvard on Wednesday and threatened the university's ability to enroll international students unless it turns over records on visa-holders' "illegal and violent activities."
"If Harvard cannot verify it is in full compliance with its reporting requirements, the university will lose the privilege of enrolling foreign students," a DHS statement said, with Secretary Kristi Noem accusing the university of "bending the knee to antisemitism."
Following in the footsteps of Joe Biden's administration, Trump officials consider any and all displays of solidarity with Palestinians and against Israel's US-backed destruction of Gaza to be "antisemitic."
Students on campuses across the nation – many of them Jewish – have been at the forefront of protests against the 17-month-long assault that experts consider to be genocidal. Their universities have mostly complied with calls from donors and trustees to repress the movement, often violently and in violation of official statutes.
Harvard has also participated in the crackdown, but Trump's latest demands have been a bridge too far for its president, Alan Garber, who said in a statement: "No government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."
That led Trump's Education Department to announce a freeze of over $2 billion in grants, followed by threats to further defund the university.
Cover photo: Collage: REUTERS