Secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem charges Harvard with “fostering violence” on its grounds. Key US political narratives from Thursday, 22 May 2025
On Thursday, the Trump government intensified its conflict with Harvard, so stopping the university’s capacity to attract foreign students and ordering current international students to either transfer or lose their legal status.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, claimed Harvard was “fostering violence, antisemitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist party on its campus.”
Professor Pippa Norris of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government told the Guardian the action would “benefit Oxford and Cambridge and many other academic institutions … America once more will suffer as a result.
Following an earlier cancellation of $2.2 billion in federal funding, the Trump government previously stopped a further $450 million in grants to the institution in May. The university sued the Trump government in response to the federal cuts, having an endowment of almost $53 billion.
“Universities have a privilege rather than a right in enrolling foreign students and profiting from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” she said. ” Harvard had lots of chances to act morally. It declined.
