Evan Ringel retweetledi
BREAKING: FIRE statement on Trump administration revoking Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification
The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to escalate its assault against Harvard University by revoking its ability to enroll international students is retaliatory and unlawful.
Secretary Noem’s letter warns that the Trump administration seeks to “root out the evils of anti-Americanism and antisemitism in society and campuses.” But little is more un-American than a federal bureaucrat demanding that a private university demonstrate its ideological fealty to the government under pain of punishment.
The Department’s demand that Harvard produce audio and video footage of all protest activity involving international students over the last five years is gravely alarming. This sweeping fishing expedition reaches protected expression and must be flatly rejected.
The Department is already arresting and seeking to deport students for engaging in protected political activity it disfavors. Were Harvard to capitulate to Secretary Noem’s unlawful demands, more students could face such consequences. The administration’s demand for a surveillance state at Harvard is anathema to American freedom.
The administration seems hellbent on employing every means at its disposal — no matter how unlawful or unconstitutional — to retaliate against Harvard and other colleges and universities for speech it doesn’t like.
This has to stop.
Since 1999, FIRE has fought for free speech and academic freedom at Harvard and campuses nationwide, and we will continue to do so. We know there is work to do. Whatever Harvard’s past failings, core campus rights cannot and will not be secured by surveillance, retaliation, and censorship.
No American should accept the federal government punishing its political opponents by demanding ideological conformity, surveilling and retaliating against protected speech, and violating the First Amendment.
Secretary Kristi Noem@EnvoyNoem
This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus. 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. They have lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law. Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.
English
