TRANSCRIPT
"It's obviously an incredibly stressful time for Australian and Kiwi international students, but also for all international students. The news has come only about five days before a lot of us are due to graduate the university."
That's Sarah Davis, a student from Australia currently enrolled at Harvard University, the oldest college in the US and one of the world's most prestigious institutions.
The President of the Australia New Zealand Harvard Students Association was reacting on the BBC to the news that the university's estimated 6800 international students will soon be forced to transfer or lose their legal status to be in the country - after the Trump administration revoked Harvard's ability to enrol them.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce says Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has done this by terminating Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program or SEVP certification.
"I can't speak to Secretary (of Homeland Security Kristi) Noem's plans or - and strategy and her decision to implement this. What I would argue is that we have an interest as a nation, as President Trump has spoken to quite often, that we have an interest as a nation for these universities that are supposed to be the gold standard to actually deliver people who are educated and can function in society and, on campuses that encourage a learning environment as opposed to one of left wing activism."
US President Donald Trump has undertaken an extraordinary effort to revamp private colleges and schools across the US that he says foster anti-American, Marxist and "radical left" ideologies.
He has criticised Harvard in particular for hiring prominent Democrats to teaching or leadership positions.
Recently, Harvard has sued the US government to force the restoration of some $US3 billion in federal grants.
Colin Binkley from the Associated Press says this most recent move is being seen as the latest salvo in that long running stoush.
"This is part of the Trump administration's escalating battle with Harvard. Harvard is the first university in the United States to openly defy the Trump administration's orders to limit pro-Palestinian protests on campus and to eliminate DEI practices. And this is one more front that the administration is looking at to kind of try to pressure Harvard into coming into compliance."
The Trump administration itself denies this.
The Department of Homeland Security maintains that Harvard has created an unsafe campus environment by allowing what they have described as anti-American and pro-terrorist agitators to assault Jewish students.
It also accuses Harvard of working with the Chinese Communist Party, saying it hosted and trained members of a Chinese paramilitary group as recently as 2024.
Tammy Bruce says the university should see the decision as an opportunity.
"I think that this opens up a conversation, as it should, between the federal government and the universities that we rely on and have been proud of, that we deserve to be proud of them again. And if we're going to speak about who we rely on for the best in the brightest, there's plenty of American kids who also deserve to be taken seriously. And I believe that we can handle all of them properly."
The decision has found support from conservative circles, including Jay Greene at the Heritage Centre, an American think tank heavily involved in the Project 2025 manifesto.
"I think the Trump administration is trying to remind elite institutions in the United States that they are the beneficiaries of very large subsidies from taxpayers. And so they do have to serve American interests."
But Harvard says the move is illegal, and amounts to retaliation.
The university has released a statement saying it remains fully committed to educating foreign students and is working on producing guidance for those who are affected.
For Sarah Davis, that means a nervous wait, both for those who have gone home for the Northern Hemisphere summer break, and others - like her - who have just finished their studies and were anticipating relying on Harvard to sponsor them in the jobs they'd secured in the US.
"We're seeing a lot of confusion. This news seems to have taken at least the Harvard International Office by complete surprise. It got announced actually only ten minutes after we finished the final call for international students for the year. And they seemed to have no indication of this coming based on the call before the news broke. And so for many of us we're just sitting back to see if we get any communications about what the next steps are from the University, and we're currently monitoring the breaking news as much as you guys (journalists) are."
