This morning, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked Harvard University’s ability to grant visas to international students, on the basis of promoting “pro-Hamas sympathies” and “racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policies.”

For now, a federal judge has blocked the revocation of international students’ legal statuses, in response to the letter stating that current international students on F- and J- visas at Harvard would lose their visas unless they transfer to another institution within 14 days. Though this injunction provides temporary space to breathe, it is important to note that over 4,700 international students across the country have already had legal status revoked this spring alone by the Trump Administration.

The immediate consequences of the DHS’s motion beyond this injunction are that Harvard is officially prohibited from hosting students on F- and J- visas for the 2025-2026 school year. 

The DHS has permitted Harvard one path to regain its so-called ‘privilege’ to issue visas to international students: providing ‘official or informal’ records of not only ‘illegal,’ ‘dangerous or violent’ activity, but ALL protest activity by international students on or off campus in the last 5 years.

If the DHS’s motion moves forward, there will be three options at hand: international students at Harvard leave the United States, these students transfer to other institutions or Harvard provides surveillance-state levels of information on students involved with any activity the Trump administration deems a ‘protest,’ regardless of subject matter.

Stanford has thus far skirted mostly under the radar of the Trump Administration’s authoritarian crackdown on elite educational institutions, yet as we have repeatedly witnessed with the violent brutalizations of student protestors across the country, the kidnappings and illegal deportations of Americans without trial and other fear tactics over the past year, this will not stop at one campus. If Stanford does not act now, our own international students and others across the country will be next on the chopping block.

Regardless of Harvard’s response to the federal government’s baseless and authoritarian demands, I call on the Stanford administration to take the following steps to protect our students and our reputation as a global institution, as ‘institutional neutrality’ is an embarrassing excuse for complicity.

1. Publicly denounce the actions of the United States government against the freedom of educational institutions as authoritarian. How long will it take for us to realize that staying out of the spotlight will not protect educational integrity? As long as the Trump Administration remains emboldened to take away whatever ‘privileges’ it deems fit for student expression ‘on or off-campus,’ we are all in danger.
2. Open an expedited transfer pathway for international students from Harvard University. President Levin chose to prioritize student body expansion as part of his platform in administrative leadership, and Stanford has an opportunity here to position itself as a safe haven for international students at our sister institutions across the country until Harvard can reopen its gates. The continued education of these students must be a priority for all of us regardless of their initial institution, and any Harvard student at Stanford will only serve to strengthen our existing community and education.
3. Provide clear messaging and protections to Stanford students. Stanford must commit to maintaining the enrollment and academic status of all international students in the scenario that the DHS’s actions are applied to us. Students cannot learn in an environment controlled by fear, wondering whether their legal status might change overnight. 
4. Commit to student privacy and anonymity. Stanford must commit to setting a national precedent of non-compliance with non-binding federal demands that could endanger the visa status or well-being of any student. We must expect that any information provided to the federal government regarding the activity of students will be used antagonistically against students and this institution.
5. Actively leverage litigation and legal resources to protect Stanford and other collegiate institutions.

If the federal government fails to take their hands off the invaluable educational pathways colleges like Harvard and Stanford provide to students around the world, whether these DHS orders reach Palm Drive or remain confined to Cambridge streets, Stanford has a responsibility to protect these opportunities for all students and leverage whatever tools we have to stand in the way of these actions. Every moment that University president Jonathan Levin ’94 and the rest of the Stanford Administration fail to validate and support students’ right to protest, regardless of the subject, Stanford makes it easier for the federal government to take these increasingly authoritarian actions. Every time a student or faculty-led protest or petition is ignored, every time Stanford rolls back long-standing campus spaces for internationals and every time the administration remains silent in the face of an increasingly grim state of the nation, they spit in the face of the stated values of this institution and this country.

Whether Stanford or Harvard, collegiate education cannot be dictated by a culture of fear and retribution. Silence is complicity. Stand for something, President Levin, because the blades of grass on the Oval stand still as Die Luft de Freheit dissipates.