"Dehumanising": Students Caught In Harvard Crisis Speak To Foreign Media

Shreya Mishra Reddy's parents were “ecstatic” when she was admitted to Harvard University. Like many other Indians, Reddy said that it is "the ultimate school that anybody in India wants to get into”, to the BBC.

She would have graduated soon, but now she has to break it to her parents that she won't be graduating in July from the executive leadership programme as the Trump Administration has stopped Harvard from enrolling international students, "as a result of their failure to adhere to the law".

She added that it has been very difficult for her family to hear this and they are still trying to process it. "You have so much to learn from different cultures, from people of different backgrounds. And everybody really valued that," Reddy said.

There are 6,800 international students in Harvard that make up about 27% of Harvard's enrollments this year. About one-third of its foreign students are Chinese and 700 are Indian.

On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that the Ivy League University had been allegedly "fostering violence" and "antisemitism".

The Harvard row has put students in limbo in all stages- those waiting to enroll, those halfway through college and those awaiting graduation. The latter are in a more unfortunate position as even their work opportunities are tied to their student visas.

The students who are in Harvard will have to enroll in another American university to remain in the US and retain their visas. The foreign students had been a core source of revenue for Harvard.

"I hope Harvard will stand for us and some solution can be worked out," Ms Reddy says.

The university has said it is "fully committed to maintaining [its] ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University – and this nation – immeasurably".

The move is another whiplash from the Trump government on higher institutes of learning especially those that have seen pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Dozens such universities are facing investigation as the government tries to change the way they are run.

The row spiralled when the White House threatened Harvard of banning foreign students in April, after they refused to change their hiring, admissions and teaching processes. $3 billion in federal grants were also frozen.

Chinese student Kat Xie who is studying in STEM, said that she is “in shock”. "I had almost forgotten about [the earlier threat of a ban] and then Thursday's announcement suddenly came”, she added. 

She also stated that she had spent the last weeks seeking professional guidance on how to continue staying in the United States, but the options are "all very troublesome and expensive", she said.

The Trump administration accused Harvard of "coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party", to which Beijing has responded saying that this is just "politicisation" of education and the move would "only harm the image and international standing of the United States", urging for the ban to be withdrawn "as soon as possible".

The only way the university can regain its ability to enroll these students is if it complies with a list of demands within “72 hours”. 

"None of this is what we've signed up for," said a 20 year old Pakistani student - Abdullah Shahid Sial, a very vocal student activist. He said the situation he finds himself in is "ridiculous and dehumanising".

"We might have to leave immediately but people have their lives here - apartments, leases, classes and community. These are not things you can walk away from overnight”, said Jiang Fangzhou, a student in Harvard Kennedy School studying public administration.