23.5.2025

The US administration has now banned the elite Harvard University from admitting foreign students to teaching. Furthermore, students already enrolled will be forced to leave the university. Unsurprisingly, this move has sparked outrage worldwide.

That, too, began innocently

During the US election campaign, it was not easy to notice or take seriously the taunts against supposedly woke or left-liberal educational institutions, as they were almost drowned out by countless taunts and attacks against everything and everyone. Immediately after the change of administration in Washington, the beginning of the targeted dismantling of democracy also became first concrete in other areas, e.g., replacing laws with decrees, filling the cabinet with unqualified loyalists, or ignoring court rulings.

A loud warning signal, however, was the order for universities to remove DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusion) programs from their curricula. DEI as a topic goes far beyond "woke." One of the accusations is that of an un-American portrayal of history. Even influencing university curricula was an attempt to restrict academic freedom. Several universities caved in – not Harvard.

Obey or ...

Resistance must be crushed. When Harvard defied the order, the funding was initially turned off. Funding, on which even a private university like Harvard depends, was cut off. This leaves Harvard with approximately USD 4 billion missing in funding to maintain its teaching operations. Since Harvard still hasn't backed down, the current order is the next step. Foreign students are supposed to leave the university based on the bold claim that this is fighting terrorism. With a tuition fee of approximately USD 80,000 per semester and approximately 6,000 students, or almost 30 percent of the total, this not only represents a massive further loss of revenue for the university, but also no longer conceals its blatant "foreigners out" mentality.

Fear of Education

Education helps us see more, understand more, perceive more, and also form our own, well-founded opinions. Education can be uncomfortable. Education can mean opposition, and opposition can be dangerous for dictators.

In all authoritarian systems, educational institutions have been targeted to contain opposition and resistance. In all authoritarian systems, immense effort is made to keep the people dumb and quiet with propaganda. In Russia, people are bombarded with propaganda around the clock to reduce their independence.

The National Socialists went even further in 1933, when, from March to October, the NSDAP, the Hitler Youth, the SA, and the German Student Union burned books by Jewish, Marxist, pacifist, and other opposition authors as part of an "action against the un-German spirit." Parallel terms like "un-German" and "un-American" are unsettling.

The Next Own Goal

With his limited understanding of economic interrelations, the US President has unleashed a tariff war that will primarily hit the American economy through inflation and a decline in consumption. By shortsightedly alienating long-standing partners, he has squandered trust in and lost reputation of the US.

An attack on and war against educational institutions, especially one of the world's best universities, is a battle against institutions that create knowledge, stand for innovation, represent technological and economic progress, and represent strength in the future. There is also competition for the best professors and students. Weakening one's own elite universities means giving other countries a competitive advantage in the future.

A depressing phenomenon

The war with Harvard and the resulting attack on education reveals disturbing parallels that go hand in hand with the dismantling of democracy and law and order in other areas. We are witnessing a new book burning, 92 years after 1933. America is evolving into an autocracy, and protests are still relatively limited.

But it is also a phenomenon when one attack after another harms many perceived enemies, but even more so harms an America itself, which was supposed to become "great again" through these attacks and is becoming smaller and smaller.

Education is taboo – Keep up Harvard!