UNITED STATES – The US government has threatened to ban Harvard University from enrolling foreign students – after the institution said it would not bow to demands from President Donald Trump’s administration and was hit with a funding freeze.
The White House has demanded the oldest university in the US make changes to hiring, admissions and teaching practices – to help fight antisemitism on campus.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has asked for records on what she called the “illegal and violent” activities of its foreign student visa-holders.
Harvard earlier said it had taken many steps to address antisemitism, and that demands were an effort to regulate the university’s “intellectual conditions”.
“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a message on Monday to the Harvard community.
The new request from Noem said the institution would lose the “privilege of enrolling foreign students” if it did not comply with the demand for records.
Harvard said it was aware of the new request from Noem, which was made in a letter, the Reuters news agency reported.
International students make up more than 27 per cent of Harvard’s enrolment this year. Even before Noem’s statement, billions of dollars hung in the balance for the university, after the freeze of some US$2.2 billion in federal funding.
Trump has also threatened to also remove Harvard’s valuable tax exemption, the loss of which could cost Harvard millions of dollars each year. US media reports suggest the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has started drawing up plans to enact this.
Harvard has said there is “no legal basis” to remove its tax exemption, and that “such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission”. (BBC)
