Don’t miss this bit. Currently enrolled students are going to need to find a new university.
> 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.”
I don't get how DHS has control over what universities foreign students can attend. Either than can attend school in the US or not. Saying they have to transfer from Harvard to another American university is total abuse of power. Surely there are lawsuits in the works over this.
The F/J exhange visa is tied to a specific sponsor (ie the University) for a very specific goal. There are a lot of restrictions on what you can and can't do. If your visa sponsor has its privilege revoked then presumably you have a choice to transfer to a different institute, if one will take you, or leave the country.
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.
i'd guess this kind of thing (per-institutional authorization to allow international students) was intended to provide the government a way to revoke that right from "sham" institutions (wonder if Trump University ever had international students?) or ones that otherwise were obviously trying to facilitate students skirting or abusing immigration law.
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).
Which isn’t at all how PhD programs work. This is a supreme dick move to students are going to be forced to leave with an AbD for no other reason than Trumps ego.
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.
You're very wrong if you think harvard accepts children of dictators and monarchies for its graduate programs. It's near impossible to get into those program except if you are a genius (exceptionally high GPA and GRE grades, published valuable scientific papers in prestigious journals). Just check the graduate student's directory to see what I mean.
They (the current administration) doesn't want to be competitive. They want to be in full control and willing to destroy any institution, organization or person that opposes them, internal or external.
I think the problem is that half of the country (has been made to) wants to sabotage itself. Therefore, they elect and keep in power someone that gives them exactly what they want.
Harvard does not have "the best and brightest" students and that's a meme that needs to die as is discriminatory to literally all the other students in the US and the planet.
Harvard doesn't have higher academic standards for foreign students. So I don't think foreign students are any "better or brighter" than their American counterparts.
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.
> A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from terminating the legal statuses of international students at universities across the U.S.
I don't think this decision can force the Department of State to issue new visas for Havard students unfortunately. At least existing students *might* be alright...
This is not the same issue. Judges can be fast, but not that fast. Both the decision and this action against Harvard happened within an hour of eachother.
Why do students need to be inside the US in order for Harvard to issue them a degree? Surely there is an international network -- collaborators abroad who could host students, etc, etc. For example , Harvard already has an infrastructure of exchange programs. It's not ideal for the students, but I don't see why they can't continue to "be Harvard students" from anywhere.
Hopefully, though, this is an "escalate to deescalate" thing, and this whole discussion will become moot.
I wonder what avenues there are for Harvard to challenge this; it looks like the mechanism the Trump Admin used was for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to cancel Harvard's Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification [0] which is managed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [1].
Does ICE just have full discretion over SEVP? Can they do this to any school for whatever reason they want?
Under 8 U.S.C. § 1372, the SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) program requires schools to report data on international students including what DHS has been asking for.
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
The actual statute provides the categories of information schools must provide about their students. It’s not a “whatever we happen to ask for” list. See 8 U.S.C. § 1372. Needless to say, “protest activity” is not included.
yep. the laws have been written to be broad... my best guess would be the best legal argument Harvard could claim would be that it construes the existing law as a bill of attainder (a law targetted at an individual or group of individuals called out by person -- versus called out by some category of actions -- that is judged without trial)
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.
Maybe, but I doubt it. Trump is not a mafia boss - time after time he showed that his words cannot be trusted. If Harvard makes a concession, there's no guarantee that Trump will "forgive" it.
Look how China is dealing with Trump. Trump announces tariffs, China returns Boeing planes, tariffs somehow comes down.
> The actual letter explains they can regain status by ratting out their students.
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.
Can someone ELI5 the power networks involved here?
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?
> For example, getting things done with prestige connections, domestically and internationally. And the international diplomatic goodwill
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.
Much thanks for the jfk link. New info. Interesting info to me at least.
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!
> Between Harvard, Yale, and possibly a few other schools, I thought they had influence throughout government.
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.
A friend is a big Harvard alum. He says that most of his classmates are very unhappy with the direction of the university. So in his circle the alumni may be cheering this on. Maybe not the extremism but the general idea of telling Harvard that it needs to get back to truth-seeking.
I mean that alumni are invested in the prestige of the alma mater, and in the network they have through that. Also, that some people at the universities are very connected, and can get a lot of people on the phone.
A big wakeup call for me is I believed the idea that there was a small group of people in the US that had the "real power". The billionaires, the corporations, the elite whoevers. And on a certain level that was comforting, because their self-interest to keep the United States as the best place for capitalism meant that certain political excesses would be limited.
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.
In my opinion the reason why they are getting smacked is because they are powerful. This is textbook 101 dictatorship power grab in action. Harvard in the US is law. If they can't fight this, probably nobody else can or will.
One explanation might be that the objects of their influence are nested within agencies.
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 (?).
It's hard for me to see this as anything more than "they resisted Trump, that pissed him off and now he's further retaliating."
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"
I would read the constitution and come to terms with the fact that the executive authority is vested in a president. It’s not quite a king, because it’s not passed down by inheritance and they can’t enact laws by fiat… but the president is supremely powerful during their term.
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.
If you've been aware of Trump at all since the 1970's he's always been vastly inferior to anyone who takes academic effort seriously. And he knows it, his whole life, a lot better than anyone else, that's way longer than the general public who didn't really become aware of it until the '70's.
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.
This is an explanation from my department chair which I've expanded. In the context of a university, there are four main power groups - the alumni, the faculty, the students, and the board of trustees. (Within each group of course are subfactions.) The actual power balance between these groups is never precisely certain (it's an unobservable "latent variable"). Whenever large events happen that involve the university, we get observations that allow us to estimate the latent variable better.
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!).
It feels like a situation where alumni are holding their breath. It reminds me of that moment in basketball games where the ball bounces around the rim - will it go in or will it bounce out? If I'm on the sidelines of that game, then I'm not going to vocalize until the ball settles.
> This implies that the strength of that edge of the power graph is much weaker than it was expected to be
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.
Many people associated with the University are pretty happy about it getting smacked down.
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.
For every person that went through these elite schools, they must have rejected five or more other people. These schools pride themselves on turning people away. Perhaps, they have far more enemies than friends, explaining their seeming lack of influence in this situation
Harvard (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the Ivy League) collects a lot of federal money, this comes with certain conditions around treating people fairly without respect to skin color, ethnicity, or religion.
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.
It’s less a shift in power networks and more about Trump using existing presidency tools more aggressively. Harvard didn’t lose influence, it’s being targeted because it's outspoken and symbolic. The immigration authority falls under the executive branch, so the president can act unilaterally, without needing broader support.
> Between Harvard, Yale, and possibly a few other schools, I thought they had influence throughout government.
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.
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.
Dartmouth is a smaller target without the name recognition of Harvard, and MIT has stronger ties to the MIC without the strong public image of a liberal institution. Harvard is a test case (what can this admin do) and a symbol almost in its own category for Trump's followers.
That is just shockingly cynical. We're facing a situation where a sitting government feels empowered to go to war against an elite university solely over the speech it doesn't like to hear on its campus.
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?
>Harvard and Yale didn't hire the right lobbyists.
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.
>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.
When you put it like that... should I make some popcorn?
The Project 2025 people and the Yarvinists agree that elite universities like Harvard are spreading the “woke mind virus” and must be destroyed. They consider their movements a revolution, not an iteration on the status quo.
> Can someone elucidate the power networks involved here?
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.
Fox and the rest of the media network is the main player. They spend the energy required to present an alternative reality for their base, and have insulated their viewers from any discussion on a shared common reality.
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.
I am not entirely sure what you mean but I will disagree with other commenters that there are no factions at war with each other. If you look at the prosecutors who went after Trump in the past few years, they were disproportionately Harvard Law grads. So that is Merrick Garland, Matthew Colangelo, Alvin Bragg, and Jack Smith. I do think that law schools in particular have cultivated a particular political view and are not independent or nonpartisan but I very much disagree with what Trump is doing.
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.
Isn't a lot of the appeal of Trump that he does not owe anything to these power networks? Others in the Republican party may do so, but Trump has the Republican party well under control, and so doesn't have to listen to anyone. Trump has drained the previous swamp and erected a new one, and Harvard never got an invitation.
I think its a few reasons/things here...(some already noted in some way by others)
* 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. ;-)
> 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
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.
Disregarding whatever surface-level motivations Trump might have, let's look at some things attacking Harvard accomplishes.
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.
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.
A lot of people don't want to hear it but Trump isn't really a part of the Washington elite and is bringing in his own circle of people from his first pass at being President. Along the way he has picked up various sycophants and of course likes to hob knob with other billionaires. That is the clique you are dealing with, not the traditional washington crowd from Ivy Leagues. Harvard has a history of standing up to Trrump and he doesn't like that and is a very veangeful person, whether he was in the wrong or not. Unless you bend the knee (he can be very "forgiving" then if it benefits him or his ego) you are going to be a target. Mix that with his sociopathy and zero concern over rule of law and it doesn't look good for Harvard or Columbia for the next few years, unless courts move quickly
You are describing the inability for dissent as normal. In fact, it's considered an international human right. Despite it also being in our constitution, the Trump Administration's actions resemble your comment closely.
I think it's fine to ask these kinds of questions, in the hope that the HN audience may include individuals with particular insights. A response like this has the same ring to it as posting a link to LMGTFY, which is disallowed here.
Expect much much more of this as Slicon Valley scum continue to get their way. They have very loudly expressed their desire for a sort of fuedal power and hace polluted the current administration with some of their ideas.
Very true. A feudal relationship once established was never going to conform to their political interests. They simply pushed too far, too fast, and for too long for that to be a possibility.
It's called a bill of attainder and it's prohibited by the Constitution. Courts have said this also applies to executive orders though it's not as crystal clear.
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.
No; it’s illegal but he controls the justice department and is attempting to silence the courts. He’s singling them out because they refused to bend the knee. This is not okay. And it is not normal.
And when Harvard sues the administration will call on the over 1 billion in pro-bono "fighting antisemitism" legal work they extorted from the nations largest law firms.
Ctrl + F "Yarvin" only returns one comment. Kind of surprised, neutering Harvard's power has been one of that guy's main objectives for what feels like, well, forever at this point. He finally has his man.
I haven't read everything he's written (who has?) but my take on the literature tells me Harvard is a stand-in for his "Cathedral", and so degrading its power and influence would be a worthy goal for his political project. Take that with a grain of salt, it's been a few years since I actually engaged with what he writes. Though, I should probably try again since NYT did interview him recently. His style is just hard to deal with. It's like Rushdie, in a way, where you need a deep understanding of whatever it is he's talking about for the metaphors to make sense.
Readit News
> 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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Israel
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.
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* 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.
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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.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/magazine/curtis-yarvin-in...