People entering and exiting the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 15, 2025. (Credit: Joseph Prezioso/AFP.)
The Trump administration banned the prestigious university of Harvard from teaching foreign students on Thursday.
Depriving the institution of an important means of influence, a shocking decision and a new escalation in the U.S. government's offensive against higher education. According to its website, the university in the northeastern United States, ranked among the best in the world and which has produced 162 Nobel Prize winners, hosts about 6,700 "international students" this year, accounting for 27% of the total.
"The certification of the SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor) program of Harvard University is revoked with immediate effect," wrote Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a letter to the institution.
According to the secretary, this means that Harvard is prohibited from receiving students holding F or J visas for the 2025-2026 school year, a potentially immense loss for the campus, both financially and in terms of international influence.
"This decision [...] is the latest in a series of retaliatory measures and blatant authoritarianism against the oldest higher education institution in the United States," denounced the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) at Harvard. "The Trump administration is illegally seeking to destroy higher education in the United States."
Ultimatum
According to Kristi Noem, foreign students already enrolled must "transfer" to another university or risk losing their visa.
This initiative was already taken by Karl Molden, a 21-year-old Austrian student in government and classical literature, who did not wait for the axe to fall and enrolled at the University of Oxford in Great Britain. "I love Harvard and getting in was the greatest privilege of my life," but "the United States is becoming less and less attractive for higher education," he told AFP.
The secretary accompanied her shocking decision with an ultimatum: if Harvard wants to regain this "privilege," it must provide within 72 hours a series of information it supposedly has on alleged "illegal" activities of its foreign students in the past five years.
"This decision by the government is illegal," a Harvard spokesperson immediately responded, contacted by AFP. "We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard's ability to host our international students and scholars, who come from more than 140 countries and enrich the university - and this nation - in immeasurable ways," the institution added. Harvard distinguished itself several weeks ago by suing the government over the issue of withdrawing its federal aid.
The Trump administration has launched a wide offensive against higher education in the United States, accusing the most prestigious private universities, notably Harvard and Columbia, of allowing anti-Semitism to thrive and not sufficiently protecting Jewish students during protests against Israel's war in Gaza. The Republican camp more generally accuses major American universities of promoting leftist ideas deemed too progressive. Civil liberties organizations see it as an offensive against freedom of expression and an attempt to muzzle any criticism of Israel's policy.
"Panic"
In her public letter, the secretary reproaches Harvard for refusing to provide information to the government, "while perpetuating a dangerous environment on campus, hostile to Jewish students, encouraging pro-Hamas sympathies, and using racist policies of diversity, equality and inclusion." These diversity policies are justified by their defenders as a means to correct historical inequalities within American society.
In its showdown with Harvard, the U.S. government already cut more than two billion dollars in grants, halting some research programs. Harvard countered with a lawsuit to defend its academic freedom, an initiative applauded by many students and professors.
"We are working to quickly provide guidance and support to our community members. This retaliatory measure threatens to seriously harm the Harvard community and our country and compromises Harvard's academic and research mission," added the university spokesperson.
An American student on campus in her fourth year, Alice Goyer, reported to AFP that the news had begun to circulate, but that "no one knows" what it means for her foreign classmates already enrolled at Harvard. "Everyone is panicking a little," she added, hoping for a "legal battle" against this shocking decision.
