Trump vs. Academic Freedom: President Escalates Attacks on Harvard & International Students

A court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to prevent Harvard University from enrolling international students. The move would cause over a quarter of Harvard’s student body to lose visas that allow them to study in the United States. One of the students affected is Francesco Anselmetti, a member of the graduate student union, who emphasizes that visa revocations would affect graduate researchers and teaching staff, constituting “the largest threat of vast deportation on a unionized workforce in American history.” It is the latest attack by the Trump administration against universities that receive federal funding.
When announcing the revocation order, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of “antisemitism” and “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party,” but Harvard professor Alison Frank Johnson warns that the prestigious university is only a test case for Trump’s wider crackdown on knowledge production and academic freedom. “Harvard is not really the target here. It’s the independent scholarship that’s being produced by universities.”