The Trump administration has threatened to pull Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students unless the school shares information about these students’ disciplinary records and participation in protests.
It marks the latest escalation in the White House’s crackdown on the Ivy League university over an alleged failure to address campus antisemitism, an effort critics say is a thinly veiled attempt to exert undue influence over the prestigious university.
In a letter to the university on Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of creating a “hostile learning environment” for Jewish students.
The letter, obtained by the Harvard Crimson, demands that the university agree by April 30 to sharing information with the administration about international students who have made threats to students or university personnel, obstructed the learning environment, or who have faced disciplinary actions “as a result of making threats to other students or populations or participating in protests.”
“Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism — driven by its spineless leadership — fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security,” Secretary Noem said in a statement Wednesday. “With anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology poisoning its campus and classrooms, Harvard’s position as a top institution of higher learning is a distant memory. America demands more from universities entrusted with taxpayer dollars.”
If the school lost its accreditation under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, it would leave the roughly 10,000 international students at Harvard in limbo. These visa-holders make up over a quarter of the school’s overall student body and often pay higher tuition rates into university coffers than domestic students.
The White House has accused Harvard of failing to counter campus antisemitism amid widespread pro-Palestine protests over the last two years.
It has threatened the Ivy League school with financial devastation if it doesn’t agree to a series of sweeping demands that go beyond antisemitism-related issues, including cooperating with federal immigration officials, ending diversity programs, screening international students for their views, de-recognizing pro-Palestine student groups, and Harvard subjecting itself to a wide-ranging “viewpoint diversity” audit.
Across the country, the administration has attempted to deport multiple leaders of the campus Gaza solidarity movement and pull the visas of over 1,000 international students.
Harvard, for its part, has maintained that it has worked diligently to stop antisemitism on campus.
University officials said on Monday they would not agree to the administration’s demands, calling them an inappropriate overreach. Harvard is the first of the many Ivy League universities targeted by the administration to affirmatively commit to resisting the administration’s demands.
“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Harvard president Alan Garber wrote this week.
Shortly after Harvard signaled its stance, the administration froze $2.2 billion of federal funding, part of roughly $9 billion in federal funds Trump has threatened to pull from the school.
“We will continue to comply with the law and expect the Administration to do the same,” the university said in a statement on Wednesday after the threat to international enrollment.
In recent days, President Trump has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
