Harvard President Alan Garber received a hero’s welcome at the university’s commencement ceremony on Thursday, as he congratulated graduating students from ‘around the world,’ repeating the phrase ‘around the world,’ for emphasis.
Cute. But this is no time to antagonize.
After months of escalating back-and-forth between the White House and the Cambridge institution over the school’s failure to responsibly police runaway progressive activism and antisemitism on campus, Donald Trump seems determined to bring the university to its knees.
Last week, the White House sought to block Harvard from enrolling any new foreign students – of any nation – and even threatened to force current international students to transfer elsewhere.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio went further, vowing to work ‘aggressively’ to revoke the visas of some of the roughly 275,000 Chinese students studying in the US, if they’re determined to present a threat to national security.
Harvard is fighting the ban on foreign students in the courts but if the new rules are enacted it wouldn’t only be devastating to the university (more than a quarter of the nearly 25,000-strong student body is foreign), it would be disastrous for America.
Few are more clear-eyed than I am about the threat that the Chinese Communist Party poses to the United States. If foreigners are deemed to be a threat, they should be barred from entering the country – and if they’re already here, their visa should be revoked.
But I am also a Harvard Business School executive fellow and I’ve had the honor of teaching entrepreneurship to many of Harvard’s international students. The young scholars that I’ve met love America. They want to live here, start families, build businesses and contribute to the largest economy on Earth.
Harvard President Alan Garber received a hero’s welcome at the university’s commencement ceremony on Thursday, as he congratulated graduating students from ‘around the world,’ repeating the phrase ‘around the world,’ for emphasis.
The ban on foreign students is now being fought in the courts but if the new rules are enacted it wouldn’t only be devastating to Harvard (more than a quarter of the nearly 25,000-strong student body is foreign), it would be disastrous for the US. (Pictured: Recent grads at Harvard).
Moving to the United States and achieving financial independence is the essence of the American Dream. Not only is kicking these students out of the country senseless, but it is deeply dispiriting.
And this situation is deteriorating by the day.
On Tuesday, the administration said it would seek to cancel an estimated $100 million in federal government contracts with Harvard, after freezing $3.2 billion in grants and agreements.
Harvard attracts the sharpest researchers from around the world. But if you were looking for a position in the science, engineering or medical field and watching the White House attempt to gut Harvard of its federal funding, wouldn’t you go elsewhere? Perhaps even stay in your home country?
These researchers are tomorrow’s inventors. And anything done to unnecessarily derail their work will has devastating outcomes for decades to come.
Finally, I’m also the proud parent of a son who has been accepted to Harvard, and I selfishly want him to have the best education experience that the school has to offer. And, in my opinion, that is an educational environment seeded by the brightest cohort of classmates from around the world.
I’m not on the board of Harvard but I have urged its members to call the White House because they’re going about this all wrong. For a group of smart people, they sure don’t seem to understand how Trump operates.
They seem to think that Harvard can win a fight against Trump in the courtroom, but they’re losing the public relations battle today and they’re trashing Harvard’s brand in the process.
Just this week, Trump floated redirecting $3 billion in grant money for Harvard to trade schools across the US. That’s a very popular thing to say and I’d assume that a majority of Americans, Republican and Democrat, would agree with it.
If these – I believe misguided – ideas take hold, the entire Ivy League may face a fundamental restructuring of the US educational system.
Harvard attracts the sharpest researchers from around the world. But if you were looking for a position in the science, engineering or medical field and watching the White House try to gut Harvard of its federal funding, wouldn’t you go elsewhere? (Pictured: Protestors at Harvard).
Just this week, Trump floated redirecting $3 billion in grant money for Harvard to trade schools across the US. That’s a very popular things to say and I’d assume that a majority of Americans, Republican and Democrat, would agree with it.
Harvard needs to de-escalate now – and I know how it can be done. For in the end, Trump is a transactional person.
President Garber should go to the White House for a one-on-one with the president and propose a vetting process for foreign students to be designed with the administration.
If prospective students willingly submit to a more stringent screening process prior to admittance and they graduate in good standing, then they’d receive a golden visa to stay in America, start a family, build a business and help create jobs, because that’s what we should do.
This program would then be applied at every single American educational institution that brings in foreign students.
International talent could continue following into America, bolstering the economy and seeding it with new ideas, and the government could be assured that foreign adversaries are not infiltrating the country.
It’s an opportunity that Harvard must seize.
When the President of the United States goes to war with the greatest exemplar of the American Dream, something has gone grievously wrong.
Let’s make a deal.
