Harvard graduates celebrated commencement on Thursday at a pivotal time for the Ivy League school, cheering speakers who stressed the importance of maintaining a diverse and international student body while standing up for the truth at a time the esteemed university is under threat by the Trump administration.
Harvard's battles with Trump over funding and restrictions on teaching and admissions presented another challenge for the thousands of graduates who had already endured their share since arriving on campus four years ago. They started college as the world was emerging from a pandemic and, in the years since, grappled with student-led protests over the war in Gaza.
Other schools face the loss of federal funding and their ability to enroll international students if they don't agree to the Trump administration's shifting demands. But Harvard, which was founded more than a century before the nation itself, has taken the lead in defying the White House in court and is paying a significant price.
A school under threat
The Trump administration’s latest salvos include asking federal agencies to cancel about $100 million in contracts with the Ivy League school. The government already canceled more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants, moved to cut off Harvard’s enrollment of international students and threatened its tax-exempt status.
Visa interviews for international students admitted to schools nationwide were halted on Tuesday, and Trump said Wednesday that Harvard should reduce its international enrollment from 25% to about 15%.
Sustained by a $53 billion endowment, the nation’s wealthiest university is testing whether it can be a bulwark against Trump’s efforts to limit what his administration calls antisemitic activism on campus, which Harvard sees as an affront to the freedom to teach and learn nationwide.
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The Trump administration has demanded that Harvard make broad leadership changes, revise its admissions policies and audit its faculty and student body to ensure the campus is home to many viewpoints.
In response to the administration’s threats, Harvard has sued to block the funding freeze and persuaded a federal judge to temporarily halt the enrollment ban. During a hearing in Boston on Thursday, the judge extended her order blocking the ban on enrolling international students.
Calls for Harvard to stand strong
Harvard President Alan Garber, who has repeatedly defended the school's actions, didn't directly touch on the Trump administration threats when he addressed the graduates Thursday. But he did get a rousing applause when he referenced the university's global reach, noting that it is “just as it should be.”
Several of the graduating speakers spoke more directly about the challenges facing the school and society.
Speaking in Latin, salutatorian Aidan Robert Scully delivered a speech laced with references to Trump policies.
“I say this: ... Neither powers nor princes can change the truth and deny that diversity is our strength,” Scully said.
It was a sentiment echoed by Yurong Luanna Jiang, a Chinese graduate who studied international development. She said she grew up believing that the “world was becoming a small village” and that she would be part of the generation that would “end hunger and poverty for humankind.”
She said coming to Harvard, she found a global community that included classmates from all around the world.
“When I met my 77 classmates from 32 different countries, the countries I knew only as colorful shapes on a map turned into real people, with laughter, dreams and the perseverance to survive the long winter in Cambridge,” she said of the other students in her international development program. “Global challenges suddenly felt personal.”
Now, though, she said she wonders whether her worldview is under threat.
“We’re starting to believe those who think differently, vote differently or pray differently, whether they are across the ocean or sitting right next to us, are not just wrong — we mistakenly see them as evil," she said. “But it doesn’t have to be this way.”
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Dr. Abraham Verghese, a bestselling author and Stanford University expert on infectious diseases, opened his keynote address by saying he felt like a medieval messenger “slipping into a besieged community,” with more attention focused on the university than perhaps anytime during its history.
“No recent events can diminish what each of you have accomplished here,” Vergghese said
On Wednesday, basketball Hall of Famer and activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the “Class Day” speaker, and journalist Christiane Amanpour addressed graduates of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Both praised Harvard for standing up to the Trump administration, with Abdul-Jabbar specifically calling out the actions of Garber.
“When a tyrannical administration tried to bully and threaten Harvard, to revoke their academic freedom and to destroy free speech, Dr. Alan Garber rejected the illegal and immoral pressures,” Abdul-Jabbar said to wide applause as he compared Garber's response to Rosa Parks' stand against racist segregation.
“After seeing so many cowering billionaires, media moguls, law firms, politicians and other universities bend their knee to an administration that is systematically strip-mining the U.S. Constitution, it is inspiring to me to see Harvard University take a stand for freedom," he continued.
Earlier in the week Garber said in an interview with a university publication, that “government overreach and devastating attacks on scientific and medical research are unwarranted and unlawful, and so we have taken legal action to defend the institution.”
“We should all be concerned that colleges and universities have increasingly come under attack. But we should not dismiss the criticisms even when they are based on distortions or inaccuracies — we need to look for the underlying concerns that can be embedded in them,” said Garber, who commissioned internal reports last year on antisemitism and anti-Arab prejudice at the school.
The Trump administration has said it wants "to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment.” It cites campus protests against Israel. Like many college students around the country, Harvard students set up tents called on the university to divest from companies supporting Israel's military, which has leveled Gaza in response to attacks by Hamas.
Last year, hundreds of graduating students walked out of commencement chanting “Free, free Palestine” after weeks of campus protests. Harvard also said some protesters would not receive diplomas alongside their classmates, although it eventually allowed most to get them.
This year, the anti-war demonstrations have largely faded from view, but protesters held a silent vigil a few hours before Thursday's ceremony. Holding signs that read “Ceasefire Now” and “Not Another Bomb,” protesters stood silently along the walls of Harvard.
