US risks an own goal on Harvard

Donald Trump’s anger over Harvard University is not difficult to comprehend. His view is not only that it has become a febrile hotbed of mindless anti-Semitic and anti-Israel madness – particularly since Hamas’s barbaric October 7, 2023 slaughter of 1200 Jews – but also that it is a crucible of wacky wokery and diversity, equity and inclusion militancy that regards the US and the West more generally as vile oppressors.

None too subtly, Mr Trump has described what is one of the world’s great universities (it has produced 162 Nobel prize winners and countless US and world political and business leaders) as a stronghold of “radical left idiots and birdbrains … a joke (that) teaches hate and stupidity”. Many doubtless will agree with Mr Trump. But whether that really warrants the sweeping action taken by US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week when she unilaterally, by government fiat, barred foreign students from studying at Harvard, where they make up almost a quarter of the student body, is far from certain.

At a stroke 6800 students (including 120 from Australia) have had their Harvard dreams and ambitions plunged into disarray in what The Wall Street Journal, normally highly critical of Harvard wokery, has described as “a shortsighted attack on one of America’s great competitive strengths: its ability to attract the world’s best and brightest”. The government, the paper said, “seems bent on destroying the school”.

On Friday, following an application by Harvard, a US Federal Court judge issued a temporary restraining order against the foreign student ban. Mr Trump is not alone in his outrage over what has been taking place at Harvard. But Ms Noem’s arbitrary withdrawal of the university’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification means even foreign students who have taken no part in and are opposed to the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel protests on campus must pack up and go, pending a final decision by the US courts.

That is certain to be extremely damaging to America’s longstanding ability to attract young, talented students who have carried their enterprise and intellectual capital to centres of learning such as Harvard, to the immense benefit of the US. As an example, international students – many from Harvard – have founded or co-founded nearly two-thirds of the top artificial intelligence companies in the US.

It is no surprise China appears to be enjoying the stoush between Harvard and Mr Trump. A more sophisticated response than Ms Noem’s ill-considered iron fist is needed for the Harvard crisis.