TMTPOST — The Trump administration is further escalating its battle with elite private universities as it stripped Harvard University’s certification, effectively blocking it from enrollment of international students.
Credit：Harvard
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday announced Harvard University lost the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification for fostering violence, antisemitism, and pro-terrorist conduct from students at its campus. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered the department to terminate Harvard’s certification. The order means the Ivy League school “can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status”, DHS said in a news release.
In a letter sent to Harvard, Noem informed that its SEVP certification was revoked, effective immediately. The university, if it wants to regain its ability to host foriegn students, has 72 hours to hand over requested information about international students, , including audio or video footage, of foreign students participating in protests or dangerous activity on campus.
Noem in his letter accused Harvard of failure to adhere to the law. “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,” Noem wrote in the letter. He then said the move serves as “a warning to all universities and academic institutions” across the United States.
With SEVP certification, Harvard currently has approximately 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge Massachusetts, accounting for 27% of its student body. That marked a significant increase from the proportion of 19.6% in 2006. Most of them are graduate students,coming from more than 100 countries.
The revocation is U.S. President Donald Trump’s another blow to Harvard. Noem last month terminated two DHS grants totalling over $2.7 million to the university. The Secretary also wrote a letter demanding detailed records on Harvard’s foreign student visa holders’ illegal and violent activities by April 30, or face immediate loss of SEVP certification. “Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism — driven by its spineless leadership — fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security,” Noem said in that letter.
Harvard University brazenly refused to provide the required information requested and ignored a follow up request from the Department’s Office of General Council, the DHS said on Thursday.
Harvard blasted the DHS move as the unlawful action and said it’s working to provide guidance to students. “This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard’s academic and research mission,” the university said in a statement.
A U.S. federal judge in California later Thursday ordered to ban the Trump administration from terminating the legal status of international students nationwide while a court case challenging previous terminations is pending.
The order by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White in Oakland bars the government from arresting or incarcerating the plaintiffs and similarly situated students; from transferring any of them outside the jurisdiction of their residence; from imposing any adverse legal effect on students and from reversing the reinstatement of the legal status until the case is resolved, according to the Associated Press.
