The president kicked off Memorial Day in true Trump fashion by remembering those who have defied him, launching new threats at Harvard and reminding them of their precarious position.
President Donald Trump posted a series of Truth Social rants Monday morning, several of which attacked Harvard University for refusing the administration’s demands to release a list of its international students’ information, including any misconduct and offenses.
“We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country,” Trump wrote.
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“Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents, and probably for good reason!” he said. “The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best Judge (for them!) - But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!”
He also threatened to withhold $3 billion more of federal grant money from the institution, in addition to the $2.2 billion in federal funding it has already frozen.
“I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land. What a great investment that would be for the USA, and so badly needed!!!” he wrote.
This tirade follows the Trump administration’s recent claims that Harvard has not been transparent about the number of international students it admits into the university.
On Thursday, it launched a failed attempt to block the school’s ability to admit international students, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcing that it would be revoking the university’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments.”
“Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused… Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country,” she added.
Yet Harvard claims that it complied with Noem’s April 16 “records request” despite the “unprecedented nature” of the demand, saying that Harvard’s International Office provided the DHS with information on “each student visa holder” across its 13 schools.
But after DHS called their response “insufficient,” Harvard stated that they were not given any explanation on which regulation they failed to comply with, adding that they even responded to a follow-up request from the DHS.
“The government’s termination of Harvard’s SEVP certification is the culmination of its unprecedented and retaliatory attack on academic freedom at Harvard,” the university said in their complaint.
But the move to revoke the school’s SEVP certification was swiftly blocked by California federal judge Jeffrey White, who issued the school a temporary restraining order against the administration. This prevented Harvard from being forced to terminate the visas of international students days before graduation.
The university said that around 7,000 visa holders, roughly a quarter of its student population, will be affected by the removal of SEVP, calling it “the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”
“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,” the university wrote in their complaint.
“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” it stated, calling the move “unlawful.
In her letter Thursday, Noem gave Harvard a new list of demands in order for it to regain its SEVP certification, including “any and all audio or video footage, in the possession of Harvard University, of any protest activity involving a nonimmigrant on a Harvard University campus in the last five years.”
