Is Trump Trying to Destroy Harvard?

First of all, you kiss the ring or kiss the pavement. Columbia fell in line, said "I'm sorry" and Voldemort is leaving them alone. Harvard isn't sorry yet, but not to worry...they'll find religion. Besides Henry Hill understood, "everybody takes a beating sometimes".

BTW, the WSJ is missing the larger point. The US doesn't retain the foreign college students it's training (excepting PHD programs), That's a massive mistake. That's the elephant in the room.

BTW: I do NOT use content generated by AI.

Is Trump Trying to Destroy Harvard?

The order against foreign students turns away the world’s brightest.

By The Editorial Board, WSJ

May 23, 2025 5:35 pm ET

The Trump Administration has frozen billions in federal grants to Harvard University, threatened its tax-exempt status, and sought to dictate its curriculum and hiring. Now the government seems bent on destroying the school for the offense of fighting back. And for what purpose?

That’s how we read the Department of Homeland Security’s move Thursday to bar foreign students from attending the world-renowned institution. That’s 6,800 students, or a quarter of Harvard’s student body, whose futures are suddenly in disarray. It’s also a short-sighted attack on one of America’s great competitive strengths: Its ability to attract the world’s best and brightest.

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The latest assault began when DHS demanded that Harvard turn over sundry records on its foreign students, including whether any had participated in illegal activity or left the university owing to “dangerous or violent activity or deprivation of rights.”

Some of its record requests are reasonable, but some overreached by requiring private student information. DHS also gave Harvard all of two weeks to respond. If it failed to do so, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said she would “automatically withdraw” the school’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. “The withdrawal will not be subject to appeal.”

The SEVP program lets non-citizens enroll at universities on student visas. DHS can bar universities from the program if they fail to comply with “recordkeeping, retention, reporting and other requirements” on foreign students. Harvard says it responded with “information required by law” within two weeks and handed over more records on May 14.

Ms. Noem deemed Harvard’s response unsatisfactory and kicked the school from the program. This means foreign students will have to leave the country in short order or find another U.S. college that will take them.

Most of Harvard’s foreign students are enrolled in graduate programs. Many assist with scientific research and teaching undergraduate courses. Driving them out of Harvard will disrupt research projects and might cause some professors in the sciences to leave for other universities. This seems to be a goal of freezing Harvard’s research grants.

Harvard sued on Friday, and a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the student ban. The university rightly says the Administration’s actions are “clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”

The university seems likely to prevail on the law, but until courts settle the merits, thousands of students who have done nothing wrong will be in legal limbo. Some of them no doubt opposed the anti-Israel protests and may even hail from Israel. Why punish them?

The Trump team’s tactics against Harvard recall how the Obama Administration cut off student aid to for-profit Corinthian Colleges on the pretext of its alleged dilatory response to sweeping record demands. Thousands of students’ educations were disrupted so the Obama team could wave a political scalp.

This will be terribly damaging to America’s ability to attract talented young people who bring their enterprise and intellectual capital to the U.S. Non-citizens accounted for more than half of doctoral degrees in AI-related fields in 2022. Many have gone to work at U.S. companies like Nvidia or started their own.

The National Foundation for American Policy finds that “immigrants have founded or cofounded nearly two-thirds (65% or 28 of 43) of the top AI companies in the United States, and 70% of full-time graduate students in fields related to artificial intelligence are international students.” Immigrants have also started more than half of America’s privately-held startups valued at $1 billion or more.

Even if it’s modified, Ms. Noem’s order will echo around the world as a signal that the U.S. is no longer open to educate the world’s brightest young people. Foreign students will get the message and take their talents elsewhere. China’s politburo must be laughing at their good luck that their main adversary is hamstringing itself—first with tariffs that make its firms less competitive, and now with an assault on immigrant talent.

Like most of U.S. higher education, Harvard needed a jolt to return to its mission of educating open minds. But that requires reform. The Trump Administration seems to think it needs to destroy Harvard to save it. This is the opposite of making America great.