On the evening of April 29, Harvard University affiliates gathered to protest recent executive orders jeopardizing the institution’s ability to enroll international students unless they disclose requested information on foreign students. This demonstration comes a week after University affiliates similarly resisted the Trump administration’s same warning and a day after the school announced it would not be funding affinity group graduation celebrations. Harvard has until April 30 to submit the requested information to the Department of Homeland Security.
Under the headline “Harvard Stand United,” the emerging student group Harvard Students for Freedom led the initiative. “International students are at risk. Freedom of Speech is at risk,” an Instagram post from the organization read. A series of Harvard College students spoke to a crowd of students, activists, and other University affiliates at the Science Center Plaza.
“To President Garber and the Harvard administration, my message is this: you have a choice:. The deadline is tomorrow, all of us students have made our voices very clear,” recently elected co-president of the Harvard Undergraduate Association Caleb Thompson ’27 said in a speech to the crowd. “We do not want you to send these records to the Department of Homeland Security. Let that be loud and clear.”
“This is a moment as the student body that we really want to stand united and unified on our front, both toward the Harvard administration and the Trump administration,” Thompson added in an interview with the Independent.
Opening remarks were delivered by Leo Gerdén ’25, an international student from Sweden, who characterized Donald Trump’s recent criticism of the University as a “full-scale attack.”
“He is trying to install himself as the provost, dictating who can be admitted, what can be said in our classrooms, what professors should be fired, and what graduation celebrations we can have,” Gerdén said. “That is what Harvard has to resist.”
The first international student graduated from Harvard in 1910. Since then, the University has been committed to upholding its class diversity. As of the 2024-2025 academic year, 6,793 foreign enrollees stretched across its undergraduate and graduate schools. Now comprising approximately 27.2% of the University student body, foreign matriculation has increased by 172% over the past two decades.
Beyond Harvard, a record number of international students registered into American higher education institutions in the 2023–2024 academic year. In comparison to the 2022–2023 enrollment total of 1,057,188, 2023–2024 saw a total incoming 1,126,690 foreign students—an approximate 6.6% increase. Graduate school registration in particular increased by 7.6% from 2022–2023, reaching over 502,000 individuals. Undergraduate enrollment of international students, in contrast, decreased by 1.4% to 342,875 across U.S. colleges.
The Institute of International Education and the U.S. Department of State predicted continued growth in international enrollment for the 2024–2025 academic year. While they have not yet released their report, President Trump’s recent orders may place this upward trajectory at risk.
Gerdén explained the dual urgency behind the demonstration, pointing both to the attack on international students and the decision to defund affinity group celebrations. “Yesterday, Harvard said that they would not provide any support to affinity group celebrations,” he said. “It is totally against Alan Garber’s words and his promise not to surrender Harvard’s independence.”
Gerdén warned that the administration’s strategy was intended to fracture the Harvard community.
“Just like any authoritarian leader, he wants to divide us. He wants us to point fingers instead of calling his bluff. And that is why the message of this protest is Harvard stands united,” Gerdén said.
Harvard must submit in-depth disciplinary records on student visa holders by April 30. “Failure to comply with this Student Records Request will be treated as a voluntary withdrawal,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wrote to Harvard University President Alan Garber ’76.
“In the event the school fails to respond to this request within the timeframe provided above, [the Student and Exchange Visitor Program] will automatically withdraw the school’s certification. The withdrawal will not be subject to appeal.”
The federal government has cited concerns of rising antisemitism on campus to justify its actions. On April 29, Harvard University published a 311-page document, “Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias,” seemingly addressing these worries. However, Jewish students and advocates gathered at today’s demonstration, condemning what they call a “cover” for the Trump administration’s larger agenda.
“The Trump administration is trying to use me and trying to use all of Harvard’s Jewish students as cover to wage a war on higher education, on academic freedom, and on our international classmates who are living in fear,” said Maia Hoffenberg ’26. “The Trump administration’s efforts are not even about protecting us. We don’t protect Jewish students by dismantling education, silencing speech, and deporting our classmates.”
“Democracy, not deportation, protects Jews,” Robinson stated.
Harvard seems to be working on striking a balance between student opinions and government requests. In what seemed to be an attempt to capitulate to federal orders looking to eliminate the University’s DEI programming, on April 28, Harvard announced that they will rename its Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging to “Community and Campus Life.”
“We must sharpen our focus on fostering connections across difference, creating spaces for dialogue, and cultivating a culture of belonging—not as an abstract ideal, but as a lived experience for all,” Chief Community and Campus Life Officer Sherri Ann Charleston wrote in a letter to the Harvard community.
Harvard Kennedy School Professor and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Cornell Williams Brooks highlighted at the rally the shortcomings of rebranding existing organizations focused on promoting diversity, especially under the guise of combating antisemitism at the protest.
“What I can tell you, as a civil rights lawyer of some 30 years…When you engage in Islamophobia, Jews are not made safe. When you engage in anti-Black racism, Jewish people are not made safe. Anti-Asian hate, Jewish people are not made safe. We’re all endangered by this effort to pit us against one another,” Brooks stated in his speech.
Nonetheless, Charleston confirmed that this new office will still emphasize cultural belonging, expand programs that stretch across cultural boundaries, and bolster support for first-generation and low-income students. However, University affiliates believe that such drastic changes should not be necessary. In their eyes, the Trump administration needs to distance itself from higher education.
Brooks went on to characterize the Trump administration’s attacks as distinctive.
“I want to suggest to you that there’s a certain Machiavellian brilliance that makes this policy far more nefarious. It would seem, at first glance, this is not merely a policy of divide and conquer. This is a policy of divide and deputize allies to conquer one another,” he commented.
Beyond enrollment capabilities, campus diversity is further at risk following a recent email from Harvard’s Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. “The University has made the decision to no longer provide funding, staffing, or spaces for affinity celebrations,” the administration wrote to affinity student organization leaders. This decision follows the U.S. Department of Education threatening funding cuts if the University permitted race-based graduation commemorations.
The Class of 2024 saw ten affinity celebrations, including those for Arab, Asian American Pacific Islander, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and low-income graduates. Some of these events drew over 1,000 audience members and echoed the University’s devotion to fostering multiculturalism. This letter thus comes as a disappointment to many.
“This was not what you promised when you said you would stand up against the Trump administration… To say one thing and do another is to not keep your promise to the students of this college, and we’re all very disappointed with that decision,” Thompson said.
Nonetheless, the University remains devoted to its goals of diversity and inclusivity in the wake of federal fiscal and operational pressure. “We want to underscore our team’s continued commitment to fostering a thriving community where every student feels a strong sense of belonging at Harvard,” the email continued.
Over the next few weeks, the implications of these words and student actions should become clear. However, affiliates hope their efforts will not go unrecognized.
“A divided Harvard is a Harvard that is already lost. And we stand together,” Thompson’s HUA co-president Abdullah Shahid Sial ’27 said in his speech at today’s rally.
“We will not kiss the ring, we will not slide backwards into prejudice and censorship, and we will not stop in our efforts to defend the students of this institution and the people of this nation, we will not stop in our efforts to defend freedom,” Taryn Riddle ’25 added.
“We struggle, and we struggle together,” Brooks emphasized.
Sara Kumar ’27 (sjkumar@college.harvard.edu) and Nashla Turcios ’28 (nashlaturcios@college.harvard.edu) write News for the Independent.