Trump has it in for Harvard because they refuse to bend to his will. Trump’s hate-on started last year when Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard slipped up when asked about Palestinian protests on campus and anti-semitism. She later resigned.
Trump started his attack on Harvard as soon as he took office. The last wrinkle was last week where Trump banned Harvard from having international students and Harvard instantly won a temporary restraining order.
Last night, Trump added fuel to his fire, he just got it all wrong, as he nearly always does.
“Why isn’t Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students come from FOREIGN LANDS…”
Estimates are from 25% to 27%. Donald all caps “foreign lands” like it is automatically evil.
“… those countries, some not at all friendly to the United States, pay NOTHING towards their student’s education, nor do they ever intend to.”
Trump is backhandedly implying that all the foreign students are on scholarships. They’re not. Most international students pay full tuition, and with room and board that makes $87,000 per school year. The “not friendly” swipe is just another attempt for Trump to justify his theory that this is a foreign plot to attack the U.S.
“Nobody told us that!”
You could have Googled it like I did, and found out the correct answers in seconds.
“We want to know who these foreign students are…”
His latest demand is to get the names of these students so he can dox them, put ICE on their tails, revoke visas, you know the drill.
“… a reasonable request , since we give Harvard BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, but Harvard isn’t forthcoming.”
Well. those billions of dollars aren’t exactly forthcoming. Harvard is suing you in court to get them back.
“We want those names and countries.”
You don’t have a right to those at all. A clear case of invasion of privacy. It has no relation to anything to do with grant money.
“Harvard has $52,000,000, use it, and stop asking for the Federal Government to continue GRANTING money to you!”
For the second time in two days, Trump is so angry that he leaves three zeros off an amount and makes it millions instead of billions. They have a $52,000,000,000 endowment. Actually, it’s more than that now. And they know they can use it if government grants are not forthcoming, but Harvard is fighting in court about the grant cancelations as well.
Harvard is using its “Presidential Priorities Fund” to offer flexible funding to research and teaching amid the Trump spending cuts.
A non-profit watchdog, American Oversight, sued the Trump administration on Wednesday for “unlawfully withholding records” in the effort to revoke Harvard’s tax exempt status. The group says the IRS and the Dept. of Education missed deadlines under the Freedom of Information Act requests.
The government admitted to “viewpoint discrimination” in court on Wednesday because a research project included the terms “LBGTQ” and “transgender.”
Harvard is going to ignore Trump’s latest demand and fight it in court if necessary.
Most foreign students at Harvard are from China, India and Canada, but over 150 countries are represented.
Trump is going to lose this battle, too, simply on the fact that the government has no right to know the names of students and what country they hail from. If it was a Pell grant, the government would already know those details. But we aren’t talking about government money at all here. It’s all private, and the government has no right to invade that privacy.
Trump better get used to failing against Harvard. They’re smarter than he is.