Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem says Harvard is ‘unfit to be entrusted with taxpayer {dollars}.’
Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem on April 16 threatened to revoke Harvard College’s potential to enroll overseas college students, and introduced that DHS was pulling $2.7 million in grants from the college.
Noem tied the choice to Harvard’s response to the pro-Palestinian protests on the faculty that started after Israel’s army operation focusing on Hamas terrorists within the Gaza Strip in response to the group’s assaults on southern Israel in October 2023.
The press launch stated that Noem has additionally written a letter demanding detailed information on Harvard’s overseas pupil visa holders’ “unlawful and violent actions” by April 30, or the college faces fast lack of Scholar and Alternate Customer Program (SEVP) certification.
“If Harvard can’t confirm it’s in full compliance with its reporting necessities, the college will lose the privilege of enrolling overseas college students,” the DHS stated.
The school got here underneath congressional investigation over a yr in the past after it was accused of condoning anti-Semitism on campus—a cost that prompted the then-Harvard president, Claudine Homosexual, to resign in January 2024, amid different accusations of plagiarism.
Noem stated Harvard’s dealing with of anti-Semitic actions “threatens our nationwide safety.”
“With anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology poisoning its campus and lecture rooms, Harvard’s place as a prime establishment of upper studying is a distant reminiscence,“ Noem stated within the DHS assertion. ”America calls for extra from universities entrusted with taxpayer {dollars}.”
Grants Canceled
DHS additionally canceled two grants to the college totaling $2.7 million, stating that they “undermine America’s values and safety.”
The primary, a $800,303 Implementation Science for Focused Violence Prevention grant “branded conservatives as far-right dissidents in a surprisingly skewed examine,” DHS stated.
The $1,934,902 Blue Marketing campaign Program Analysis and Violence Advisement grant “funded Harvard’s public well being propaganda.”
Elite Faculties Face Warmth
The transfer by the DHS is the most recent motion in a collection of administration efforts towards elite faculties and universities that allegedly permitted anti-Semitic and violent actions on the peak of the nationwide pro-Palestinian protests in 2024.
Federal companies not too long ago pulled $2.26 billion in funding to Harvard.
Harvard College college students move protestors whereas submitting into Harvard Yard for graduation at Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., on Might 23, 2024. Charles Krupa/AP Photograph
The primary of those known as for substantial governance reforms, establishing clear hierarchies, elevating senior and tenured professors, and decreasing the facility of scholars and untenured college over faculty affairs.
Additionally they known as for an finish to variety, fairness, and inclusion applications and for implementation of merit-based hiring and admissions reform, demanding the college “undertake and implement merit-based admissions insurance policies and stop all preferences primarily based on race, colour, nationwide origin.”
The administration can be demanding that the college revamp its “recruitment, screening, and admissions of worldwide college students to stop admitting college students hostile to the American values and establishments inscribed within the U.S. Structure and Declaration of Independence, together with college students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.”
The letter additionally requires Harvard to up its “viewpoint variety,” with a requirement that college in every division ought to mirror totally different views on politics and social points.
In response to those calls for, Harvard steered in an April 14 assertion that they’d no intention of complying.
President Donald Trump additionally steered in a latest put up on social media that the college lose its tax-exempt standing, saying such standing is “completely contingent on performing within the public curiosity.”