A week ago, I raised the question of whether the Trump administration wanted to reform Harvard—and by extension, higher education—or destroy it. If there remained any doubt even then, it is gone now.
In what may be the administration’s most capricious and destructive action yet, it has revoked Harvard’s certification in the Student and Visitor Exchange program, meaning that Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students. This move—justified as a response to “pro-terrorist” and anti-Semitic harassment and assault—is effective immediately unless Harvard turns over an extensive amount of material on foreign students within three days, although a federal judge has now issued a temporary restraining order blocking the order from taking effect.
The letter issued by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announcing this action is troubling in several regards. First, it seems impossible that Harvard could assemble everything Noem demands within 72 hours even if it wanted to comply. Second, Harvard was already making an effort to satisfy its reporting obligations to DHS regarding foreign students, and it is very probable that the administration is now asking Harvard for information that it is not even legal for the institution to divulge, putting the university into an untenable catch-22 between the law and the executive. As The New York Times reports, there was ongoing “back-and-forth” between the administration and Harvard about “the legality” of the preceding records request, a legal question which had not been resolved prior to this escalation. Third, Harvard has sued over the slate of demands that the Trump team made last month; the administration displays contempt for the rule of law in not waiting for that matter to be resolved by the courts before hitting Harvard again, in a clearly retaliatory gesture.