Harvard students and faculty face the fallout from a showdown with Trump

Abdullah Shahid Sial, the undergraduate student body co-president, came to Cambridge from Lahore, Pakistan, hoping to work with the “greatest professors in the world.” Now, he’s written an op-ed to run in The Harvard Crimson in case he is deported for speaking out. “If at any point they want me out, then I would rather go in a much more dignified manner,” he said.

One Harvard scientist was detained and at least 11 other people affiliated with the university have lost their visas in recent weeks, though some were restored by the government on Friday.

In an interview Wednesday, two days after the university filed suit to try to win back its federal funding, Harvard President Alan Garber stood by the school’s decision to take a stand.

“It’s bigger than Harvard,” Garber told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt. “We are defending what I believe is one of the most important linchpins of the American economy and way of life — our universities.”

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, criticized the university’s response. “Colleges are hooked on federal cash, and Mr. Garber’s public outburst only fuels the push to shut off the taxpayer money propping up their institution,” he said.

With final exams and graduation now looming, many are bracing for a prolonged battle that could have reverberations for years to come.

Steven Pinker, a well-known psychology professor, co-founded the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard to promote “free inquiry, intellectual diversity and civil discourse.” He agrees with criticism that Harvard needs more viewpoint diversity but thinks the government’s demands go way too far, he said.

Harvard was told, among other demands in an April 11 letter, to increase viewpoint diversity among faculty and students (subject to the government’s approval), submit its hiring to a federal audit for more than three years, and use an ideological test on admissions for international students.

“I just don’t think Donald Trump has the statutory power to force his vision of viewpoint diversity on private universities,” Pinker said. “Could that mean that we have to have anti-vaxxers in the medical school? Does it mean we have to have ‘Stop the Steal’ theorists in the history department? MAGA theorists in political science programs? You just don’t want to give the government the power to make those decisions.”

When Harvard refused to comply, the Trump administration doubled down. In a letter sent April 16, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security demanded that Harvard provide the names of all international students who have “participated in protests” and their “disciplinary records,” with a deadline of April 30, after which it threatened to revoke Harvard’s ability to host international students.

“Harvard values the rule of law and expects all members of our community to comply with University policies and applicable legal standards,” Jason Newton, a Harvard spokesperson, said in a statement. “If federal action is taken against a member of our community, we expect it will be based on clear evidence, follow established legal procedures, and respect the constitutional rights afforded to all individuals.”

Some international students feel caught in the crossfire between Harvard and the Trump administration.

“We’re being used as poker chips in a battle with the White House,” said Leo Gerdén, a senior from Stockholm, Sweden. “None of us wanted to take this fight.”

Sial, the student body co-president, is now working with administrators to ensure summer housing on campus for the increased number of international students planning to bunker down in Cambridge out of fear they’ll be prevented from re-entering the country.

Several other international students spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid threatening their student visa status. They described this moment at Harvard as a doubly difficult: Already under threat of losing their visas — like more than 1,800 international students and recent graduates reportedly have nationwide, prior to the administration’s reversal this week — they’re also at the school that Trump is most closely scrutinizing.

One international law student said she won’t walk near protests, has taken down her social media profiles or made them private and looked into finishing her degree abroad. She keeps emergency hotline numbers and her passport with her at all times in case she is approached.

“I have no disciplinary record. I have no criminal record. I have nothing. And I’m a good student,” she said. “And, sure, I care about things, but that’s why you come to law school.”

An international environmental studies student said they now plan to leave the country once they finish their degree.

“I’m just trying to protect rivers and waterways and the environment,” they said, “and I don’t feel particularly wanted here.”

They regularly have to visit different states to conduct surveys but say they are now more fearful of travel.

“Just having the Harvard international student label on me,” they said, “it makes me a lot more anxious about being around airports or being around security.”

An undergraduate international student who attended last year’s Harvard encampment and got doxed for their pro-Palestinian activism said they moved off campus and stopped attending classes in person for two weeks, triggered by the detention of Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk. They have canceled an academic trip to Europe and skipped out on iftars during Ramadan — communal meals where Muslims break their fast during the Islamic holy month — worried that ICE might target such gatherings.

“I don’t feel safe at all being around protests and voices, which actually kills me from the inside, because I want to go there, and I want to voice my opinion,” they said.

Though some students applauded Harvard’s stand against Trump, others have mixed feelings about the school’s response thus far.

Three students said the university had already acquiesced to some extent, even before the April 11 letter. They pointed to the firing of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies’ faculty heads, suspending the Harvard Divinity School’s long-standing Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative, and pausing the School of Public Health’s research partnership with a Palestinian university.

Harvard didn’t respond to questions about these concerns. But Masoud, of the Harvard Kennedy School, said he thought those changes would have happened even if Trump hadn’t been elected.

“The university recognizes that there are certain changes that needed to be made, and will make those changes,” he said, “but it’s not going to surrender its independence or its First Amendment rights just because the Trump administration thinks that it needs to do more.”

During what has become a weekly “know your rights” webinar for international students and staff, hosted by a university-affiliated attorney and an administrator from Harvard’s International Office on Tuesday, nearly 400 questions were submitted, but only a handful were directly answered. One piece of blunt advice they gave international students: Speaking out right now on any topic is much riskier than it would be for American citizens — or even for students at other schools.

Irene Ameena, a third-year law student who is a member of the Law School’s Justice for Palestine group, said students are defending themselves by organizing trainings on how to respond to potential encounters with ICE, walking around campus in groups and only communicating on encrypted apps.

“There are really strong mutual aid networks that have formed over the past few weeks,” Ameena said, “to keep each other safe.”

Beyond concerns over international students and free speech, faculty say the federal funding cuts are putting their careers in jeopardy. Though Harvard boasts a stunning $53.2 billion endowment, much of that funding is earmarked for specific programs and purposes. That leaves schools that rely heavily on federal funding, like the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, more vulnerable.

At a town hall meeting last week, Andrea Baccarelli, the school’s dean, described a range of measures meant to help offset terminated grants — from halting new hires and reducing how many Ph.D. students are admitted to cutting back on printers and getting rid of desktop phones. Baccarelli and Stephanie Simon, the school’s spokeswoman, spoke about likely layoffs and said it will need to diversify its revenue going forward, according to three professors who attended but declined to be named because they didn’t want to speak for the school.

“School leadership is working with department chairs and administrative directors to identify strategic priorities and make sustainable budget cuts,” Simon said in a statement to NBC News. “Unfortunately, this will lead to layoffs. We are working to minimize the impact on our outstanding workforce while protecting the heart of our research and educational missions.”

Harvard Medical School leaders provided a similar forecast at a separate town hall, The Harvard Crimson reported. Harvard has issued over $1.1 billion in bonds in the past two months, hoping to shore up its finances as the battle with the government escalates.

Apart from the financial harm, those cuts have taken an emotional toll.

Brittany Charlton, a public health professor who leads the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence, said after the National Institutes of Health canceled her grants in March, two members of her research team went on medical leave due to mental health issues stemming from the situation.

“Our funding could come back,” she said. “But even if it does, irreparable harm has been done.”