Let's face it -- this was an inevitable development. However, the assassinations of two Israeli embassy employees by radical pro-Hamas activists last night would likely have accelerated matters anyway.
This particular action started a month ago, when the Department of Homeland Security demanded "detailed records" about Harvard's foreign enrollees. Kristi Noem wanted an audit to see how many foreign students attended classes often enough to maintain their residency in the US. The move came after Harvard resisted administration demands for sweeping reforms to deal with the lunatic anti-Semitism on Harvard's campus, and Noem made no pretense about the purpose of this audit:
In a letter sent on Wednesday, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, asked for “relevant information” on each student visa holder at Harvard who had been involved in “known illegal” or “dangerous” activity.
She also requested information on the coursework of student visa holders, to verify that they had taken enough classes to “maintain nonimmigrant student status.”
“It is a privilege to have foreign students attend Harvard University, not a guarantee,” Ms. Noem wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times. “The United States government understands that Harvard University relies heavily on foreign student funding from over 10,000 foreign students to build and maintain their substantial endowment.”
That's an understatement. Schools like Harvard rely on access to foreign students because they pay full freight to attend, and often come from wealthy families willing to donate funds to endowments and special projects. That makes the foreign-student visa a "secret weapon" when it comes to compliance with the federal government's enforcement of the Civil Rights Act and other federal laws. When Harvard went public with its defiance in early April, Noem's letter was one of the main consequences.
According to the Harvard Crimson, the school tried to finesse Noem with a partial response. Rather than disclose all of the records Noem demanded, the school only provided disciplinary records on some of its international students. At the time, the Crimson admitted that DHS actually does have the authority to police foreign students and access the records that Noem demanded. A refusal to comply would have serious consequences, the Crimson noted:
The April 16 requests from the DHS included information regarding each visa holder’s “known deprivation of rights of other classmates” and “obstruction of the school’s learning environment,” along with any disciplinary actions “taken as a result of making threats to other students or populations or participating in protests.”
Under Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations, the law Noem cited in the letter, universities must provide the DHS with information on international students’ degree program, course enrollment, grades, and academic status — including withdrawal, probation, suspension, or expulsion — upon request.
Universities are also required to report within 21 days any disciplinary action that they take against students because of criminal convictions.
If Harvard loses its SEVP status, current international students on University-sponsored visas will have to choose between transferring to a different institution, changing their immigration status, or leaving the country, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement website.
Harvard refused to fully comply, perhaps hoping that the White House would lose interest. Today, the other shoe dropped:
The Trump administration on Thursday halted Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, a major escalation in the administration’s efforts to pressure the college to fall in line with the president’s agenda. ...
“I am writing to inform you that effective immediately, Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification is revoked,” according to a letter sent to the university by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary. A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.
The Crimson provided the context of the decision:
According to the Times, which cited three unnamed sources in its reporting, Harvard questioned the legality of the White House’s records request, and the Trump administration opted to pull Harvard’s SEVP certification after several days of back-and-forth.
It might be more basic than that. David wrote an excellent post yesterday asking whether Harvard was irredeemably corrupt. One of its researchers argued that the rot was so advanced that the school could not possibly rescue itself unless forced to do so by "outside forces." The problem, though, is that Harvard is so captured by its own sense of entitlement and superiority -- plus cosseted by an endowment larger than the annual GDP of many countries -- that outside forces likely won't have much impact. Even the suspension of $2.7 billion in grants and other federal subsidies hasn't budged Harvard president Alan Garber off his perch.
What about this change of status? The NYT thinks this might be enough to get Garber's attention:
About 6,800 international students attended Harvard this year, or roughly 27 percent of the student body, according to university enrollment data. That is up from 19.7 percent in 2010.
The move is likely to have a significant effect on the university’s bottom line.
Tuition at Harvard is $59,320 for the school year that begins later this year, and costs can rise to nearly $87,000 when room and board are included. International students tend to pay larger shares of education costs compared with other students.
Starting today, Harvard will lose nearly 7,000 students, more than a quarter of its student body, and with it a disproportionate amount of its own income, not to mention wealth resources. The State Department will likely want to review those records too, to see whether some of them will be allowed to transfer to another school at all. If these students have to transfer, they will not be back to Harvard even if the school manages to fix its status with DHS in the near term -- and the near term may be a few months or longer. If the White House wants to keep escalating this fight, it might take years for Harvard to requalify for SEVP certification.
Harvard will likely sue over this decision, and a district court might issue a temporary injunction to prevent DHS from taking actions against students who stay at Harvard. However, that's not going to fix the problem, because (a) DHS actually has plenary authority to evaluate SEVP certifications, and (b) the murders of two Israeli embassy employees have raised the stakes significantly for Trump and his team to put an end to the "globalized intifada" here in the US. If Harvard won't cooperate by making their campuses safe for its Jewish students and faculty, then Harvard is about to get itself systematically defenestrated by every single federal agency by which Harvard sucks the public teat.
And just wait for the next shoe to drop: tax-exempt status. Hope their Harvard Law faculty studies up on Bob Jones ... those that the university can still pay, that is.
Addendum: For those who don't get the joke in the headline, let me introduce you to Tom Lehrer -- Harvard mathematician and brilliant satirical performer.
I swear that this song has been running through my mind for the last several weeks ...
