Kristi Noem Shoots Harvard As Warning To Other Schools
We can't believe we're rooting for Harvard in this mess.
We had very much lost track of where things stood in the Trump administration’s batshit stupid war against Harvard University. As best we can recall, Trump wanted to grab Harvard by the you-know-what, Harvard tried to be patient but finally told the creep to fuck off right to his fucking face, and then the administration was embarrassed for a second before resorting to its usual bullying by pulling more of the university’s federal grant money. We think there’s a lawsuit pending about that, who knows, who can even keep up anymore.
Somewhere in there, we do know that Secretary of Homeland Security and one-woman puppy kill squad Kristi Noem demanded Harvard provide to her a complete list of any foreign student on a visa who ever did anything illegal that the government can use to boot their asses back to where you came from, Mohammad.
The letter Noem sent didn’t actually say this, but the subtext all but hits you over the head with a shovel. There are demands for information on any visa holder who ever “engaged in illegal activity” or was mean to someone else or kept students from getting to the library, or whatever. Again, we’re paraphrasing.
Noem gave Harvard two weeks to comply to her satisfaction, which it didn’t, at least to her satisfaction. So on Thursday, Noem revoked Harvard’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. SEVP is a program in which ICE maintains information about visa holders so that “only legitimate foreign students or exchange visitors gain entry to the United States.” Which sounded a bit Orwellian even before the Trump administration kicked off Operation Throw Every Foreign Student Out of the Country and Give Their Spot to My Nephew Rick. But apparently schools can’t enroll international students without this certification.
The upshot of Noem's decision is that all international students enrolled at Harvard have to either transfer or leave the country.
Harvard had just shy of 6,800 international students this past school year, or around 27% of its student population. Most of them are graduate students, so transferring to a new university could be more difficult than for someone in their first year of undergrad. International students often pay full freight, which helps universities grant American kids scholarships. So, the foreigners are both an intellectual asset and a huge source of revenue for Harvard and many other colleges and universities in America.
Imagine being an international student a year away from graduating from Harvard, or finishing a postdoc, or getting ready to enroll this fall. The American government just upended your life. Sorry kids, but our government is being run by a bunch of potato-brained fascists.
That is 6,800 students who will take their tuition money and their intellects to other universities or even other countries to finish their educations. Students who will get jobs in Canada and France and contribute to those nations instead of this one.
America: shooting itself in both feet plus its dick for good measure.
Noem explained the administration’s position in a tweet:
This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.
Dammit, who told Kristi Noem about With Six You Get Eggroll Night in the dining hall?
As for Noem citing antisemitism, that is a hilarious complaint from an administration stuffed to the gills with antisemites. It’s particularly hilarious that it came on the same day that Donald Trump is hosting a private dinner for these buyers of his memecoin. Mr. President, you should be aware some of these guys have other crypto holdings:
Nine of the wallets, including some that hold Pepe-themed assets, held assets whose names are outright racist or anti-semitic. For example, one token is called “FUCK THE JEWS,” while another is simply the n-word. Four others are variations on the word “swastika,” such as “Swasticoin” and “Swastika Coin.”
No, this whole mess is not about cracking down on antisemitism. It is about bullying and forcing universities to come to heel and do whatever the Trump administration tells them. Noem would say as much on Fox:
“This should be a warning to every other university to get your act together.” We don’t know what Harvard will do next – we assume sue the living shit out of the government. Again. But Noem’s comments are a reminder for anyone who thinks that there will ever be enough cooperation for her: she and Trump are bullies, and the only way to deal with bullies is to tell them to go fuck themselves.
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Harvard is, of course, suing.
H is, of course, the epitome of privilege, so it's easy to hate on 'em. But behind the Chaunceys and Loudens and all that stuff, there are the faculty and the actual serious students, and the research effort -- the talent pool and intellectual dedication there is simply amazing.
So I don't find it hard to root for Harvard.
One of those radical left Harvard students is Princess Elisabeth, future Queen of Belgium. She's most likely "going back where she came from" Good!!! MAGA!! Belgium is a hotbed of terrorist Anti-American sentiment you know