Following their initial callout, and lawsuit, of the Trump administration’s illegal demands, Harvard University has been subject to extensive retaliation from the Trump administration, but they are not backing down.
This legal battle is happening during a time where CWU has just officially changed its mission, vision and values statement to remove DEI wording, in response to demands made by the Trump administration.
In the most recent development for Harvard, Trump moved to block Harvard from enrolling international students, but was blocked by a federal judge. Harvard, in a statement, claimed that they were being punished for not following “the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”
The Harvard Crimson, a student publication at the University, published an article with the title “Come at me, bro,” in which one writer expressed their support as a student of the university for Harvard’s refusal to comply with the administration’s demands. In the satirical commentary/opinion piece Yona T. Sperling-Milner wrote, “In my Jewish name, you and your entourage have destroyed research on cancer and heart disease, threatened to essentially deport my friends, and tried to increase Harvard’s tax burden fifteen fold. Stop it. Put that down. Let’s settle this like biological women: knock-down, TKO, cage match.”
Satire aside, Harvard students have expressed explicit support since the beginning of this now long standing battle between Harvard and the Trump administration, hosting protests and giving interviews speaking out against Trump’s mandates on the campus.
All of the turmoil at Harvard serves as a backdrop for the larger political discourse around higher education, which is currently taking place at the highest levels of the U.S. government. In an article published by Yahoo News entitled “Trump’s Attack On Harvard’s Foreign Students Will Haunt U.S. Higher Education For Years,” one writer states this about the impact this turmoil will have on higher education for the foreseeable future:
“The recent attempt by Donald Trump to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll international students is far more than an isolated political stunt or an administrative overreach. It’s a siren call to the global academic and business community: America’s welcome mat may no longer be out.”
Across the nation, international college students are finding their visas revoked. This far reaching wave of anti-immigration policy has even affected students at CWU, with two international students having had their own visas revoked. Eventually however, both students were able to get their visas reinstated, according to a release by CWU President Jim Wohlpart.
One thing is for certain, higher education is changing, and it’s changing rapidly all across the US. Some, including those in power, are calling it “reform.” Others are calling it something else entirely, “destruction.”
More updates to come on news coming out of Harvard
