The Trump administration on Thursday revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, marking a sharp escalation in the battle over the Ivy League school’s autonomy in the face of the administration’s policy demands.
“Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” the US Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered her department to terminate Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, citing the university’s refusal to turn over the conduct records
Noem in a letter to Harvard on Thursday, also accused the university of “perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes-pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ practices.”
“Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country,” the Homeland Security statement said.
Harvard has become ground zero for the Trump administration’s clash with elite US universities as it seeks to influence some campus programming, policies, hiring and admissions by threatening to cut off federal benefits. Trump officials say they are trying to banish antisemitism following contentious campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war and root out DEI practices they decry as “illegal and immoral discrimination.”
Source: CNN
