Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Harvard Salient on May 22, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s styleguidles, it is crossposted here with permission.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) moved to suspend international students’ current and future enrollment at Harvard University, citing serious concerns about national security, institutional noncompliance, and a campus climate increasingly hostile to federal oversight. While the enforcement of this decision has been paused, the broader question cannot be ignored: What is Harvard’s role as an American institution?
Harvard is not a sovereign entity. Claiming a public mission, she operates under the protection of American law and has, until recently, reaped the benefits of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. Yet in practice, she often acts as though she is answerable to no one—not to Congress, not to the courts, and certainly not to the American people.
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According to the DHS, Harvard has recklessly disregarded her legal responsibilities under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. These alleged violations include improperly monitoring international students, ignoring basic compliance requirements tied to her participation in federal immigration programs, and refusing to disclose foreign funding, especially from actors tied to the Chinese Communist Party. If these claims are valid, Harvard has grossly violated the public trust.
As the legal battle unfolds, one truth must remain clear: Harvard exists to form American leaders in service of American ideals. She owes nothing to those diametrically opposed to the American vision or way of life.
The Harvard Salient stands with the rule of law, ordered liberty, and the renewal of American higher education. The United States is a Nation of People bound by more than geography. We have a shared civic and moral purpose. If Harvard truly seeks to lead, she must begin by fostering order, respecting the nation that has faithfully sustained her, and speaking the truth, however unpopular it may be in the Yard.
Cover by Jared Gould using image of Harvard on Unsplash by Clay Banks & image of Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia Commons
27% of Harvard’s students have no affiliation with this country — that’s more than 1 in 4 and that excludes people with “green” cards (that are actually white with orange printing), DACA, and children of immigrants.
To be here on a student visa means that you have no other lawful reason to be in the country. Those who do have no need for a student visa so the actual percentage of International students at Harvard is probably higher than 27%.
Harvard is an AMERICAN university which receives not only Federal largess but generous tax breaks from both the Federal government and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
People often overlook the latter — Massachusetts has a 6.25% sales tax and a 5% income tax — neither of which Harvard pays. Even though it has it’s own subway stop and bus tunnel, Harvard doesn’t contribute to the MBTA. Harvard’s extensive property holdings in Cambridge, Boston, and elsewhere are exempt from local property taxes which — because of how K-12 is funded in Massachusetts — means that the other property tax payers in the 351 cities and towns have to pay more.
And yet it is damn near impossible for a Massachusetts child to get into Harvard. One such student “had a 3.8 GPA, was vice president of her senior class, played saxophone in an elite jazz quartet, worked summers at a camp for inner-city kids, was captain of the volleyball team, and wrote a terrific essay about her personal experiences working weekends at a homeless shelter” and didn’t get in.
So why are Massachusetts taxpayers subsidizing a university that their children can’t attend???