Kristi Noem vs. Harvard: What Their Language Reveals.
'In the life of the human spirit, words are action,' a US president said long ago. Let's look at words from a cabinet secretary who doesn't know what 'habeas corpus' means, vs. a university that does.
A century ago, the Harvard football team was a national powerhouse and even won the Rose Bowl in 1920. As the Trump administration is discovering, this 389-year-old institution can be tougher than it looks. (1907 Edward Penfield illustration, via Getty Images.)
This post is about the language of civic struggle in our times. Last week, while outside the country, in Greenland (about which more, later), I came across a rapid-fire, three-part sequence of documents, which together tell a revealing tale.
All three involve the Trump team’s escalating and lawless attempts to damage Harvard university: Its people, its research projects, its finances, its global influence, everything about it.
In reality these are acts of “burn it down!” resentment, comparable to Mao’s unleashing the nihilistic Red Guards during China’s Cultural Revolution 60 years ago. But as a paper-thin pretext, the Trump team has presented its war against Harvard as a way to make Jewish students and faculty feel more comfortable and at home there.
As outlined many times before (eg by former Harvard president Larry Summers), this Trump pretext is not just cynical but also destructive. It is destructive not simply to the university as a whole but in particular to its Jewish students and faculty. Soon after Trump’s supposed “war against antisemitism” at Harvard began, the student paper, The Crimson, published a column by Jacob Miller, a graduating senior who as president of Harvard Hillel had sounded the alarm about real incidents of antisemitism. He argued that Team Trump’s sudden tenderness toward Jewish students amounted to “seizing on Jews as their perfect political pawns.”1
Also as outlined many times before, Harvard’s response to this intimidation switched from initial, cowed-seeming compliance, to a resounding “Hell, no!”, which gave courage and cover to other educational leaders—all of whom, by definition, represent institutions with shorter histories and smaller endowments than Harvard has.
This brings us to the one-two-three series of threats, responses, and results last week—and to an examination of the words each party chose.
The statements or documents I’ll mention, in order of their appearance, are:
Thursday morning EDT, May 22: A curt, contemptuous, sneering two-page “demand letter” to Harvard authorities from Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary. Noem informed Harvard that all of their thousands of international student visas were immediately (and without legislation or “due process”) cancelled, and that they must within the week provide detailed dossiers on even more students and staffers.
Two days earlier, this same Noem had been self-humiliated before a Senate committee, when Sen. Maggie Hassan asked her to explain what habeas corpus meant. With trademark confidence-in-ignorance like that of the current White House press secretary, Noem gave an “answer” that was both flattering to Donald Trump, and embarrassingly wrong.2
Perhaps because of this experience, two days later she was not in an accommodating or knowledge-respecting mode. In her letter she informed everyone at Harvard that, on her whim, their “privilege” of enrolling some 6,000 international students had been withdrawn.Friday morning EDT, May 23: A detailed 72-page “Complaint,” filed in federal district court by the “President and Fellows of Harvard College”—the university’s official governing board—against Noem, Marco Rubio (in his role as Secretary of State), and other officials about their unlegislated, unbounded demands.
The Harvard filing, signed by eight lawyers from four firms that had decided to “stand up,” is so detailed and closely reasoned that it must have been based on careful advance planning. Still: It landed on a judge’s desk less than 24 hours after Kristi Noem’s huffy decree. It was quickly followed by a 52-page argument for a Temporary Restraining Order.
All-nighters still have their place.Friday afternoon EDT, May 23: A terse single-page ruling from federal judge Allison D. Burroughs of Massachusetts, granting Harvard’s request for a Temporary Restraining Order—that is, a block to Kristi Noem’s Mao-like edict—until a full case could be heard.
To preview their rhetorical meaning:
The first message, from Noem, is the language of thuggery, extortion, ignorance, and bullying—language to which we’re more and more inured. We’re so battle-scarred we barely even notice. But, as Arthur Miller once put it, Attention must be paid.
The second is the language of people who know the laws, the limits, the norms, and the aspirations of the United States before the MAGA era, and are fighting to see that America again.
The third is the terse language of the judiciary, on which all too much of the country’s fate now depends.
Now let’s look at these one by one.
Poster from a 1918 exhibition game, to raise money for WWI relief efforts, between the Harvard Radios—students and alums from Harvard and Boston College working in military-radio functions—and the Princeton Aviators, students and alums from Princeton involved in military aviation. The Radios won. More than 100 years later, Harvard, Princeton, and BC are among the 600+ universities standing together against governmental over-reach. (Getty images.)
1) The sneering thuggery of the opening ‘demand letter.’
You can download and read the PDF of Kristi Noem’s two-page order to Harvard, here. (That link is to a Harvard site, which gives full background on the dispute, rather than to the MAGA-toned DHS site itself. If curious, you can see Noem’s DHS site here.)
Two words-and-meaning traits distinguish Noem’s demand. The first is a tone we’d call rude and abusive in normal life, and gangster-like in legal terms. A few of many examples:
As I explained to you in my April letter, it is a privilege to enroll foreign students, and it is also a privilege to employ aliens on campus.
“How many times do I need to explain this to you Harvard people?”
As a result of your refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist "diversity, equity, and inclusion" policies, you have lost this privilege.
“This hurts me more than it hurts you. But you’ve been warned. And listen, Mister, you’re grounded.”
On April 16, 2025, I requested records pertaining to nonimmigrant students enrolled at Harvard University… As a courtesy that Harvard was not legally entitled to, the Acting DHS General Counsel responded on my behalf and afforded Harvard another opportunity to comply. Harvard again provided an insufficient response.
“I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried. But some people just won’t learn.”
Consequences must follow to send a clear signal to Harvard and all universities that want to enjoy the privilege of enrolling foreign students, that the Trump Administration will enforce the law and root out the evils of anti-Americanism and antisemitism in society and campuses.
“I don’t want to pull out this belt. But you’ve left me no choice. Aren’t you ashamed? Now bend over…”
This is language from a Secretary of Homeland Security who has absolute-zero known experience in higher education of any sort, in immigration policy or enforcement (apart from her photo-op trips to El Salvador), in international affairs, in the battles over antisemitism, or in security issues of any kind. She is as close as you could come to an ignoramus blank slate in this role. Yet her language is that of condescending contempt—“I’ve tried and tried with you people”—to the world’s center of international research and scholarship.
Much worse than the sneering tone in Noem’s letter were its demands. I can’t top the chapter-and-verse analysis that William A. Finnegan offers on his Substack, of the flat illegality of the total-surveillance info that Noem demands from Harvard, “within 72 hours,” for all of its foreign students. I highly recommend Finnegan’s post. As he points out, the US government of our era is demanding East Germany/PRC-style spying on university students, as the price of continuing decades-old public programs.
2) The ‘Well, actually…’ response.
Naturally I hesitate in saying, “You should read a whole 72-page court filing.” But, really, you should read the whole 72-page filing that Harvard’s lawyers submitted roughly 18 hours after the Noem-signed contemptuous tirade. You can download the PDF here, plus a followup TRO plea here.
I’ll quote just two parts, for the clarity of the language:
The government’s revocation of Harvard’s certification [for foreign students] was not a product of the ordinary review process set out in detailed regulations that define the limited circumstances under which a school’s certification may be revoked and put a premium on the due process rights of institutions and students.
On its face, the revocation is part of the government’s broader effort to retaliate against Harvard for its refusal to surrender its academic independence.
Similarly:
This case involves a coordinated effort to retaliate against Harvard for its refusal to accede to government demands about what a private university can teach, whom it can admit and hire, and what areas of study it can pursue.
When Harvard declined [to bow to previous demands], the Administration unleashed the full power of the federal government, freezing billions in federal grants, proposing to eliminate Harvard’s tax-exempt status, opening multiple federal investigations, and—most relevant here—threatening to terminate Harvard’s participation in the F-1 and J-1 visa programs.
Yesterday, the government made good on that threat—and it did so via a letter that makes plain that DHS is not even pretending to follow its own regulations, either as to process or as to substance. Instead, DHS all but announced that the revocation is blatantly in retaliation for Harvard’s exercise of its academic freedom.
Harvard is right here, in words that will stand up. It deserves respect and support. Noem and her thugs of darkness and ignorance are wrong. They deserve the opposite.
3) A court weighs in.
A few hours after Harvard filed its lengthy complaint and request for a TRO, federal judge Allison Burroughs ruled in the university’s favor. You can download a PDF of her concise ruling here.
The action part:
The President and Fellows of Harvard College (“Plaintiff”) has made a sufficient showing that… unless its Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order is granted, it will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.
Thus, a TRO is justified.. Plaintiff’s Motion is GRANTED.
Simple. Businesslike. Right.
Why does public language matter?
A little wrap up on this theme.
Words are not the same as action. But words matter—for each of us in private, for all of us in public. ‘In the beginning.’ ‘When in the course of human events.’ ‘Four score and seven years ago.’ ‘The only thing we have to fear…’3