Big turmoil in America! Are international students at Harvard being pushed out?
Trump’s major strike: Crisis on education for Harvard’s international students!
Trump's Crackdown on Harvard
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Trump bulldozes Harvard! Future of lakhs of international students in danger |
Donald Trump's unprecedented crackdown on Harvard University has left students in the lurch. Let me explain how exactly Trump has been choking the university. Harvard University has been on Trump's hit list for the last many months, with the latest crackdown being on international students.
The Department of Homeland Security informed Harvard that its certification to enroll international students was revoked. The university was accused of failing to provide detailed records about foreign students, particularly those allegedly involved in what the government called illegal and violent activities. Harvard has filed a lawsuit challenging this decision.
Government vs Harvard: A Showdown
The Trump administration has put forth a slew of demands to the Harvard administration, which have been resisted by the university, and that's what's essentially led to this showdown in the last many months. Almost 31% of foreigners come to Harvard. We give them billions of dollars, which is ridiculous.
We do grants, which we're probably not going to be doing much anymore to Harvard, but they're 31%, and they refuse to tell us who the people are. We want to know who the people are. Now, a lot of the foreign students, we wouldn't have a problem with. I'm not going to have a problem with foreign students, but it shouldn't be 31%.
It's too much because we have Americans that want to go there. Let me break down for you the government's demands from Harvard. First, eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. They want all these programs to be dismissed. They don't want face masks on the Harvard campus, so they want a ban on face masks. The government also has been pushing for adopting merit-based admissions and hiring practices.
The government also has pushed for Harvard to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. They've also demanded that recognition of funding to student groups accused of criminal activities or illegal harassment be immediately stopped. The government will define which groups essentially are indulging in criminal activities.
Legal and Financial Pressure
The government also has been seeking audits of campus departments suspected of ideological bias or fostering anti-Semitism to take place. People often ask, how is the Trump administration taking action like this against a private place like Harvard? After all, Harvard is a private university — it’s not run by the government. But that doesn’t mean the government has no say at all.
Harvard gets a lot of money from the government, especially for research work. Because of that, the government can put rules on how that money should be used. If Harvard wants the money, quite simply, it must comply. And since it hasn't been, the government has choked this very federal funding. Then there's student funding.
Many Harvard students receive federal financial aid, but for students again to be able to get these funds for their Harvard programs, the onus falls on the university to follow all federal education norms. Besides choking funding, the government also can take legal action against Harvard.
Besides which, there's also the accreditation that can be snatched away if the Trump administration wishes to do so. So essentially, the US government doesn't exactly control Harvard in the way it might a public university, but through money, through laws, through the courts, it can significantly influence what Harvard does, especially if the university wants to maintain its funding, reputation, and operational flexibility.
