Homeland Security’s Department of Homeland Security’s Christy Noem Department says Harvard “is not worthy of being entrusted with taxpayer dollars.”
On April 16, Homeland Security Secretary Christineome threatened to revoke his ability to register Harvard international students, and announced that DHS was withdrawing a $2.7 million grant from the school.
Noem has concluded a decision to respond to Harvard’s pro-Palestinian protests at schools targeting Israeli military operations targeting Hamasterolists in the Gaza Strip in response to the group’s attacks on southern Israel in October 2023.
The press release said Noem has written a letter by April 30 requesting a detailed record of “illegal and violent activities” of Harvard foreign student visa holders, or that the university is facing an immediate loss in Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) accreditation.
“If Harvard cannot ensure that it is fully compliant with reporting requirements, the university will lose the privilege of registering foreign students,” DHS said.
The university was investigated by Congress more than a year ago after being accused of tolerating anti-Semitism on campus. This is the charge that urged then-Harvard President Claudine Gay in January 2024 to resign amid other accusations of plagiarism.
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Noem called Harvard’s handling of anti-Semitism activities “threatening our national security.”
“With anti-American, Prohama ideologies addiction to campus and classrooms, Harvard’s status as a higher education institution is a distant memory,” Noem said in a statement from DHS. “The US is demanding more taxpayer dollars from universities entrusted with it.”
The grant has been cancelled
DHS also cancelled two $2.7 million grants to schools, saying it would “harm down America’s value and security.”
First, the $800,303 implementation science for targeted violence prevention was “brand conservatives as far-right rebels in shockingly distorted research,” DHS said.
The $1,934,902 Blue Campaign Program Assessment and Violence Advice Grant “is funded Harvard Public Health Propaganda.”
Elite universities face the heat
The move by the DHS is the latest in a series of management efforts against elite colleges and universities that allegedly allowed anti-Semitic and violent activities during the height of the 2024 national pro-Palestinian protests.
The federal agency recently subtracted $2.26 billion in funding to Harvard.
Harvard University students passed protesters on May 23, 2024, submitting to Harvard Yard for the start at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Charles Krupa/AP Photo
The first of these called for substantial governance reform, established a clear hierarchy, elevated senior and tenured professors, and reduced academic strength for students and undiscovered faculty.
They also called for the end of the diversity, equity and inclusion programme, as well as the request from universities to “adopt and implement merit-based admission policies and suspend all preferences based on race, color and national origin,” and for the implementation of merit-based employment and admission reforms.
The administration also calls for schools to “prevent international student recruitment, review, and recruitment, screening of international students, and hostile hostilities to the American values and institutions engraved in the US Constitution, as well as declarations of independence, including students who support terrorism and anti-Semitism.”
The letter also calls for Harvard to increase “diversity of perspectives” and demand that faculty in each sector should reflect different perspectives on political and social issues.
In response to these requests, Harvard proposed in a statement on April 14 that they would not follow.
President Donald Trump also proposed in a recent post on social media that schools would lose their tax-free status, saying that such status was “fully conditional on acting in the public interest.”
