Academic Freedom Podcast on Restricting International Students at Harvard University

A conversation with Eugene Volokh on the First Amendment issues of the Trump administration's actions

A new episode of the Academic Freedom Podcast has been released. The podcast is sponsored by the Academic Freedom Alliance and the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech at Yale Law School.

This episode features a conversation with co-blogger Eugene Volokh, the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He blogged about the Harvard situation here.

On May 22, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Harvard University has lost its certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. As a consequence, international students enrolled at Harvard University will no longer be given student visas. Harvard quickly filed suit, and received a temporary restraining order from the federal district court in Massachusetts.

On the podcast we discuss what the Trump administration is doing with international students at Harvard, the implications for the university and other universities that might find themselves in the crosshairs of the administration, and the First Amendment questions raised by the latest step by the administration to bring Harvard to heel.

Comments

[Dr. Ed 2]

The simple fact remains that 27% of our purported national university ought not be foreigners.

What I would like to see Trump do, and he's a loose enough cannon to do it, is simply ban ALL student visas. There is no First Amendment issue doing that, and it will force schools to compete for AMERICAN students.

[Glaucomatose]

"27% of our purported national university ought not be foreigners."

Why? The fact that the best and brightest young people from around the world want to come here to study at our universities is one of the greatest assets our country has. Do you think we'd be better off if the founders of Google, Nvidia and Tesla had all stayed in their home countries? If we can't even find enough good doctors and nurses now, do you want to restrict that population even further?

Wait, don't answer about Tesla.

[Swede425]

There is no reason to believe that for each of those "best and brightest" young people from around the world, that there aren't easily 10,000 young Americans that are at least as bright as any of those foreigners and could easily replace them.
As for those listed companies, if any of them thought they could have found a better place to start/run/headquarter their enterprise in some other country more business friendly, they'd have done it. Regardless of where their founders went to school.

[Ted Chen]

Responded to wrong post.

[Glaucomatose]

If there were 10,000 Americans that were that good, then they would be the ones Harvard (or MIT, or Stanford) was admitting. If American students want those spots, they should work harder and earn them.

[Swede425]

Again, there is no reason to believe that what you say is true.
Harvard's own history of racist admissions policies belies your claim.
Different academic standards for different types of people doesn't get you the "best and brightest". It does, however, get you sued.

[Glaucomatose]

If American students were as superior to international students as you claim, then there should be no need to ban student visas, or even cap foreign admissions at American schools. I'm not the one arguing for a quota system here.

Let American students compete, and let American schools take the best students. It's not complicated.

[Ted Chen]

Is your argument that 27% is an ok number? Or that there should be no limit on how many foreign students you think can be at US Universities as long as they are "the best and the brightest"?

For the latter, I will clarify. I could easily argue that 50% is to too high of a percentage even if they are deemed by an objective measure to be the most deserving. I don't want to create a strawman of your argument, so asking for clarification.

[Sarcastr0]

Setting any numerical goal is a bad idea.

I don't think you could easily argue 50% is too high, if you realized how many want to stick around in America and get residency/citizenship when they see how awesome we are.

Or did, until this year. This is dire.

[Ted Chen]

Trump administration is inching that way. I like how this one is more measured of a policy to clean up the issue of foreign students who are mostly here to fight political battles about foreign countries/states.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/27/trump-team-orders-stop-to-new-student-visa-interviews-as-it-weighs-expanding-social-media-vetting-00370501

[bye]

Three things on your comment
1) IF coming here as a student is coveted, then you should be restricted in your public comments, regardless, since what most Americans don't want is unnecessary stirring up of controversy.

2) Why don't the countries these people come from foot some of the bill?

3) The Demogrphic Cliff means schools will be killing the economy by preferring foreign over American students
There will be fewer U.S. college graduates equipped to fill jobs that require a college degree, while international competitors produce increasing numbers of college graduates.

Despite Hillary, the volcanic tent dress of abuse, we need more children, stabler marriages, and back to basics