In mortarboards and crimson-fringed gowns, thousands of students were joined by smiling families for the centuries-old ritual of graduation day. But this year was different.
Alan Garber, the president of Harvard University, received a standing ovation and welcomed graduates “from down the street, across the country and around the world”, drawing applause for the last words: “Around the world – just as it should be.”
It was a nod, subtle but firm, to the international students who are part of the lifeblood of Harvard but now a target for Donald Trump: his administration is seeking to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll students from overseas. It is just one front in an escalating battle between a US president with authoritarian ambitions and the county’s oldest, wealthiest and most prestigious university.
Since taking office more than four months ago, Trump has used executive power to take aim at Congress, law firms, media organisations, cultural institutions and leading universities. Some have resisted but many have capitulated. In Harvard, the man who urged his supporters to “fight, fight, fight” faces a resilient foe unlike any he has taken on before.
Its emergence as a bulwark of the opposition to Trump was summed up by this year’s Class Day speaker at Harvard, the former basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: “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 US constitution, it is inspiring to me to see Harvard University take a stand for freedom.”
Harvard was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1636, a century-and-a-half before the nation itself. Its alumni include former presidents John F Kennedy and Barack Obama, supreme court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, tech entrepreneurs Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, actors Matt Damon and Natalie Portman and writer Margaret Atwood.
