Disclosure: The views expressed in this article are solely my own and do not reflect the positions of any medical, research or health advocacy organizations with which I am affiliated.
I didn’t think the future of academic freedom would feel this personal. But this week, it did.
The Trump administration’s move to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students is a political earthquake in higher education — and its shockwaves are coming for all of us. It might be tempting to dismiss this as an elite university’s problem. It’s not. It’s a nationwide warning shot: a coordinated effort to gut academic freedom, intimidate universities, punish protests and further marginalize immigrant communities.
The Department of Homeland Security has revoked Harvard’s certification under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, a federal designation required for U.S. institutions to host international students on F-1 or J-1 visas. As a result, Harvard is now barred from enrolling new international students, and the nearly 6,800 foreign students already studying there are being told to transfer to another SEVP-certified institution or face the loss of their legal immigration status. A federal judge, however, has stepped in to temporarily block the Trump administration’s move.
This isn’t a hypothetical threat. It is an active policy with immediate consequences for students’ education, immigration security and futures. For affected students, it means scrambling to find a new institution mid-degree, navigating new legal paperwork and facing the real risk of deportation. For every other international student in the U.S., it sends a chilling message: your ability to study here is no longer protected by law, but conditional on political compliance.
The justification? Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Harvard was “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party,” allegations leveled with sweeping certainty but without the substantiating evidence such claims demand.
In reality, this crackdown is just one front in a much broader campaign to politicize and control American higher education. At the heart of the conflict is Harvard’s refusal to comply with a list of sweeping demands from the Trump administration. These demands included handing over protest footage, submitting ideological audits of students and faculty and restructuring admissions and hiring practices to align with a narrowly defined vision of “American values.”
When Harvard resisted, the administration retaliated by cutting billions in federal research funding, threatening to revoke the university’s nonprofit status and openly pressuring its leadership through social media and executive orders.
What began as a task force aimed at addressing antisemitism has ballooned into a full-blown, multi-agency assault on academic independence. At least eight federal departments, including Homeland Security, Justice, Education and Health and Human Services, have launched overlapping investigations into Harvard, probing everything from its graduation ceremonies to its faculty demographics to the editorial choices of a student-run law journal.
The message is clear: institutions that don’t conform to the administration’s agenda risk being stripped of funding, targeted by lawsuits and dragged through public spectacle. It is an effort not just to discipline one university, but to intimidate the entire academic landscape into submission.
Harvard is just the beginning. Trump officials have made it clear that this is a blueprint. That same ideological audit, funding chokehold and crackdown on protests can be used at any university. And if you’re a student at the University of Arizona like me, don’t think we’re too far removed. Arizona hosts thousands of international students who enrich our classrooms, drive innovation and contribute to our local economy. They are now being told their presence is conditional, their future subjects to the whims of federal retaliation.
The stakes go far beyond immigration. This policy is just one part of a broader, coordinated effort to erode the very foundations of American higher education: the freedom to ask hard questions, to dissent without fear and to learn from people different from ourselves. The Trump administration is actively working to transform universities into ideological echo chambers; spaces where protest is punished, critical inquiry is suppressed and only institutions that align with the government’s political agenda are supported. The attack on international students is simply the most visible front.
Behind the scenes, the administration has already frozen or revoked billions in federal research funding, including grants for cancer research, vaccine development and chronic disease prevention. These cuts don’t just hurt Harvard—they threaten scientific advancement, public health and the very research infrastructure that supports our universities and communities. The message is clear. The cost of defiance is paid in grants lost, voices silenced and futures jeopardized.
Let’s be clear: this is not just about Harvard. It’s about whether we, as a country, believe that universities should be free to teach, research and protest without federal coercion. It’s about the rights of immigrants to learn and contribute without being surveilled or scapegoated. It’s about defending the open exchange of ideas from those who want to dominate it.
Now is the time for students, faculty and leaders at the University of Arizona and everywhere else to stand up. The Trump administration has drawn a line. If we stay silent, that line will be drawn through every classroom, every campus and every visa application.
The future of higher education is on the table. Whether it remains a space for freedom and truth, or becomes another battleground for political control, depends on how we respond.
What’s happening to Harvard is a test, not of that university’s values, but of ours.
