Latest news with #HarvardCommencement
CNN
3 days ago
- General
- CNN
Harvard grads celebrate while its lawyers eke out another reprieve for international students
For a few hours Thursday, Harvard and its Class of 2025 turned their focus to all graduates had accomplished for a ceremony that also often heralded the prowess of the nation's oldest and wealthiest university amid its ongoing legal showdown with the Trump administration. Under overcast skies, the university's 374th commencement was marked by moments of unbridled joy as students and their families celebrated. Harvard President Alan Garber, who has become the face of the school's historic First Amendment fight, got a minute-long standing ovation from graduates as the event began. Garber welcomed the Class of 2025 'from down the street, across the country and around the world … just as it should be' – a nod to the nearly simultaneous federal court hearing in Boston over the university's ability to enroll international students. As the campus ceremony unfolded, US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs granted Harvard a reprieve, saying she would order the Trump administration to not make any changes to Harvard's student visa program, indefinitely. Here are some additional highlights from Harvard's commencement ceremony: Ahead of the event, an alumni group passed out ' Crimson Courage ' stickers and leaflets to students processing in, and a small group of pro-Palestinian supporters, who did not appear to be students, gathered outside the gates of Harvard Yard. Later, pro-Palestinian banners were unfurled, then quickly removed, from campus buildings. Student speakers subtly acknowledged the Trump administration's moves and how the university has changed during their time at Harvard. One said Harvard's motto of 'Veritas,' or 'Truth,' in part, is worth defending. Senior Thor Reimann told fellow graduates Harvard is 'at the center of a national battle over higher education' and reminded them Harvard has 'led the way through chaos before.' Yurong 'Luanna' Jiang, a graduate from China, used her speech to urge the audience to fight for 'the promise of a connected world' and see the humanity in people they disagree with. Legendary actress Rita Moreno received an honorary Doctorate of Arts and joined Harvard student Carolyn Hao in singing the final note of the ballad, 'Somewhere,' from 'West Side Story,' the musical in which Moreno starred decades ago. The university also awarded NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with an honorary doctorate of laws. In a Wednesday speech on campus, he said: 'When a tyrannical administration tried to bully and threaten Harvard to give up their academic freedom and destroy free speech, (Harvard President) Dr. Alan Garber rejected the illegal and immoral pressures the way Rosa Parks defied the entire weight of systemic racism in 1955.' Dr. Abraham Verghese – the bestselling author, Stanford University professor and infectious disease expert – delivered a powerful commencement address that recognized the 'unprecedented' times facing Harvard. Verghese, an immigrant to the United States from Ethiopia, spoke of how his native country suffered under an autocratic dictator and the lessons he learned from caring for patients early in the AIDS epidemic. 'Part of what makes America great, if I may use that phrase, is that it allows an immigrant like me to blossom,' Verghese said, later adding his patients dying from AIDS taught him 'love trumps all bigotry.'
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
Protesters call for end to Gaza war outside Harvard commencement
NewsFeed Protesters call for end to Gaza war outside Harvard commencement Protesters held a silent vigil outside Harvard University's commencement ceremony, demanding an end to US support for Israel's war on Gaza. The demonstration came amid rising political pressure, as the Trump administration targets pro-Palestinian activism with deportation threats.
CNN
3 days ago
- General
- CNN
Live updates: Harvard graduation, Trump admin international student ban case hearing
Update: Date: 10 min ago Title: Small protests form as Harvard Yard fills with beaming graduating seniors Content: Harvard was bursting with activity Thursday morning as thousands packed into historic Harvard Yard for commencement – all while the school's ongoing battle with the Trump administration loomed over the day. Beaming graduating seniors were decked out in caps and gowns as family members in suits and spring dresses swarmed to celebrate their loves ones. Meanwhile, outside the campus' main gates, two dozen or so pro-Palestinian protesters gathered amid lines into the commencement event. Older protesters who did not appear to be students held signs reading, 'Gaza must have food and water,' and 'Ceasefire Now.' A smaller group of pro-Israel counterprotesters also stood outside the gates, with some among them arguing with some of pro-Palestinian protesters. Despite the crush of people filling the streets of Cambridge, all was relatively calm leading up to commencement. Update: Date: 4 min ago Title: Harvard's commencement ceremony has begun Content: The commencement ceremony for Harvard's graduating class of 2025 – the 374th celebration in the school's storied history – has begun. Update: Date: 11 min ago Title: In speech at Harvard, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar praises leaders for standing up to government Content: Basketball legend and social activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar came out in strong defense of Harvard University and its leadership during a speech Wednesday on campus. 'When a tyrannical administration tried to bully and threaten Harvard to give up their academic freedom and destroy free speech, (Harvard President) Dr. Alan Garber rejected the illegal and immoral pressures the way Rosa Parks defied the entire weight of systemic racism in 1955,' Abdul-Jabbar said, according to The Harvard Gazette, the school's official publication. Abdul-Jabbar – who is being awarded an honorary degree Thursday by the university – was the keynote speaker at Class Day, an event for underclassmen held a day before the university's main commencement exercises. 'After seeing so many cowering billionaires, media moguls, law firms, politicians, and other universities bend their knees 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,' said Abdul-Jabbar. Update: Date: 32 min ago Title: Some international students at Harvard are worried about attending graduation, school tells court Content: The Trump administration has thrown the lives of the university's 7,000 international students into distress and disarray, with some afraid of attending commencement this week, Harvard's director of immigration services spelled out yesterday in a new court filing. Some US students are even reconsidering enrolling this fall because of the Trump administration's actions, Maureen Martin wrote in her sworn statement. Harvard's faculty and administration are being 'inundated with questions' from concerned students, and international students are so distressed their mental health has been affected, she wrote. 'Some are afraid to attend their own graduation ceremonies this week out of fear that some immigration-related action will be taken against them,' Martin wrote. 'Some have cancelled upcoming international travel plans to conduct academic research or see their families in light of the risk that they might not be admitted back into the United States.' Martin's declaration in court highlights the competitive disadvantage the Trump administration's recent actions against the university have caused. A judge has temporarily blocked the State Department and Department of Homeland Security from rescinding Harvard's ability to host international students. Yet some of the damage is already done, the school says. International students set to come to Harvard for future semesters are reconsidering, including at least one medical school and one law student, Martin added, as are at least three US students who want to study where international students also can be. Others have had trouble getting student visas to the US at embassies abroad in recent days. Update: Date: 16 min ago Title: Alumni group Crimson Courage hands out stickers to commencement attendees Content: Members of the alumni group Crimson Courage handed out stickers and leaflets to commencement attendees outside Harvard Yard while graduating seniors and their families entered for Harvard's 2025 commencement exercises. The group describes itself as 'a growing community of Harvard alumni from all schools and decades united in standing up for academic freedom at Harvard and beyond.' The sticker was meant to be a sign of support for the university, offering alumni the chance to 'stand up for Harvard's independence and integrity.' The group was also encouraging people to sign an amicus brief to support Harvard in its various federal court battles with the Trump administration. Update: Date: 57 min ago Title: A physician who advocates for the power of human touch will deliver Harvard's commencement speech Content: Doctors interact with patients, in many cases, when they are feeling their worst — so how they talk to those patients during such a vulnerable time matters. That's the philosophy of Abraham Verghese, the bestselling author, Stanford professor and infectious disease doctor who will address students at Harvard University's 374th Commencement this week. For many years, Verghese has advocated for strengthening the physician-patient connection and bedside skills. Harvard's invitation to Verghese comes at a time of significant uncertainty at the Ivy League school amid its ongoing clashes with the Trump administration over academic freedom, federal funding, campus oversight and most recently, a ban on the enrollment of international students. Verghese will be the first physician to give Harvard's commencement speech since 1996, according to the school's student-run newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. That year, Harold E. Varmus, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and former director of the National Institutes of Health, told graduates that supporting science was a shared human responsibility. 'He has pursued excellence across disciplines with an intensity surpassed only by his humanity, which shines brilliantly through his works of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as his work as a clinician and teacher,' said Harvard President Alan M. Garber about Verghese in the university's commencement announcement. Update: Date: 37 min ago Title: Trump administration reverses course, giving Harvard 30 days to challenge ability to host international students Content: The Trump administration on Wednesday said it would give Harvard a month to provide evidence to challenge the administration's attempt to strip the university of its ability to host international students. The move appears designed to unravel a legal challenge the school mounted against the effort last week, and is a reversal of course on the hardball that the administration was playing in attempting to revoke Harvard's student visa program, since a judge stepped in. Lawyers are set to appear in court this morning. Attorneys with the Justice Department notified a federal judge early Thursday of the fact that the Department of Homeland Security sent the school a 'Notice of Intent to Withdraw' it from the Student and Exchange Visitor's Program. The five-page notice cites several reasons for why the government was moving to strip the university of its ability to host foreign students and gave the school 30 days to respond with sworn statements or other evidence 'to rebut the alleged grounds for withdrawal.' The notice has the potential to upend a major court hearing set for Thursday morning in Harvard's challenge to the administration's decision earlier this month to ban the school enrolling international students – a move that the school says officials made without following any federal regulations for decertifying a college from the SEVP system. The new notice cites the same alleged issues the administration leaned on in its recent threats, including that the school hadn't complied with reporting requirements for foreign students and that it is not maintaining an environment 'Free from Violence and Antisemitism.' US District Judge Allison Burroughs has not responded to the filing. The hearing is expected to start at 10:30 a.m. ET. Update: Date: 1 hr 9 min ago Title: Attacks on Harvard by the Trump administration have built for months. A timeline of the dispute Content: Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has made a major push to put America's elite universities on notice over political ideology. But the groundwork for the White House's stronger stance was laid more than a year earlier. Two months after Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war — and protests at colleges over the siege and the US ally's retaliatory bombardment of the territory — the then-president of Harvard University was asked in a congressional hearing whether 'calling for the genocide of Jews' would violate Harvard's rules against bullying and harassment. 'It can be, depending on the context,' Claudine Gay said in a response that slackened the jaws of many students and donors and deeply divided the campus and its alumni. Gay later apologized. But the backlash, plus a plagiarism scandal, ultimately led her to resign, with Jewish organizations agreeing the nation's oldest, wealthiest and most prestigious university wasn't taking antisemitism seriously enough. Still, the Trump administration's claims of campus antisemitism continue to dog Harvard, with the White House making sweeping policy demands of its leaders, while threatening billions of dollars in federal funding. Read the full timeline of the dispute here. Update: Date: 56 min ago Title: Some international students weigh gap year or transferring, Harvard student leader says Content: With no end in sight to Trump administration's ever-escalating fight with Harvard University, some international students are considering taking a gap year or transferring to other schools, Harvard student body Co-President Abdullah Shahid Sial told CNN's Sara Sidner. It's important to remember the young adults 'bearing the brunt' of the latest attacks from the Trump administration are international students often thousands of miles away from their home countries and their families, Sial said. 'The absolute bare minimum you need is simply the security of being safe,' he said, adding none of the students he's spoken with are taking the possibility of leaving Harvard lightly. 'None (of the alternatives) sound as good as continuing your education within the university that you put so much effort to get into,' Sial said. Update: Date: 1 hr 14 min ago Title: Graduation day: What to expect Content: It's a graduation day unlike any other at Harvard University, as the Ivy League school persists in its months-long feud with the Trump administration over antisemitism, federal funding and the First Amendment. With hundreds of students set to walk across the stage today, here's what to expect at the celebrations. Update: Date: 1 hr 14 min ago Title: Commencement and the courts are colliding at Harvard Content: On Thursday, federal district Judge Allison Burroughs will hear the most significant debate so far in the ongoing fight between the Trump administration and Harvard University, after the administration last week tried to put into jeopardy the immigration status of more than 7,000 international students at the Massachusetts elite university. The international student population at Harvard makes up 15 percent of undergraduates, and an even larger percentage of graduate students — in all, a quarter of Harvard's student body. And the university says that with this case, its 'educational mission, its competitive edge, and its academic and research programs' are fundamentally at stake, according to a university administrator who has provided a sworn statement to the court. The arguments – at the courthouse along Boston's harbor a few miles from where Harvard's graduation ceremonies take place at the same time Thursday – are set to be the most significant debate so far in the ongoing fight between the administration and Harvard. The judge has already temporarily blocked the US State Department and Department of Homeland Security from taking action on Harvard's students. The university now aims for a more indefinite protection. Harvard's legal team has argued the university's constitutionally-protected freedoms like free speech are being violated by the federal government. International students are already in chaos and fear heading into the summer and fall semesters, a Harvard official told the court before the hearing. The Trump administration has used accusations of antisemitism and unfairness in faculty hiring and enrollment to threaten billions of dollars of funding for Harvard and notify the university it was pulling all student visa approvals as well as federal contracts and grants. Separately, the university is suing over the administration revocation of more than $2 billion in grants. The grant funding case is also before Burroughs, an Obama appointee, and is set to move forward beginning next week through the summer. 'This is really about academic freedom at universities across the country,' one lawyer involved in the cases on the university's side told CNN this week. Update: Date: 1 hr 13 min ago Title: Harvard's class of 2025 graduates amid new worries after pandemic beginnings Content: As Harvard University's undergraduate seniors collect their diplomas today, some can't help but liken the tumult at the Ivy League school with the uncertainty from their freshman days during a global health crisis. 'I came here right after the (Covid-19) pandemic,' said graduating international student Leo Gerdén. 'Next semester, international students might not be able to come back — It's the only four years that international students have been able to attend this campus.' President Donald Trump has said Harvard should have a cap on the percentage of foreign students at 'maybe around 15%, not 31%.' International students make up over a quarter of Harvard's student body. 'It's a very weird thing to be leaving in uncertainty just as much as you came in uncertainty,' said Chukwudi Ilozue, a Harvard graduating senior. The crackdown on international students 'makes me feel very fearful for them. These are people who I expected to be able to see around, see maybe back in Boston, see around the US, and I think these blows are just very saddening for me.' 'We thought Covid was something that would be insurmountable — that would permanently change everything — and to some extent it has. But we beat Covid. We beat a lot of things in the grand history of this very, very old university. I think that Trump will not be the thing that beats us.' Chukwudi Ilozue, Harvard graduating senior Update: Date: 1 hr 12 min ago Title: Trump suggests Harvard should have 15% cap on foreign students Content: President Donald Trump doubled down on his attacks against Harvard University, saying yesterday that the Ivy League school should have a cap on the percentage of foreign students. 'I think they should have a cap of maybe around 15%, not 31%. We have people want to go to Harvard and other schools, they can't get in because we have foreign students there,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. Harvard has said in court documents that full-time international students make up about a quarter of its student body. Harvard has broadly refused many government demands, including that it hand over foreign students' entire conduct records and allow audits to confirm it has expanded 'viewpoint diversity.' The Trump administration last week canceled Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students, a move that a federal judge put on hold. And The Trump administration on Tuesday directed federal agencies to cancel all remaining contracts with the university. 'Harvard has to show us their lists,' Trump said yesterday. 'They have foreign students, about 31% of their students are foreign-based, almost 31%. We want to know where those students come… Are they troublemakers? What countries do they come (from)?' Trump suggested, without evidence, that some of the international students included in Harvard's records will be 'very radical people.' 'They're taking people from areas of the world that are very radicalized, and we don't want them making trouble in our country,' Trump said.
CNN
4 days ago
- General
- CNN
Harvard commencement clouded by fears and uncertainty in battle with Trump
Donald Trump Campus protests Student lifeFacebookTweetLink Follow COVERAGE NOTE: Follow CNN's live updates Thursday on Harvard's commencement ceremony and federal court hearing starting at 8 a.m. ET. From the time Leo Gerdén left his native Sweden, he has looked forward to this day, when he'll cross a stage as one of more than 1,700 undergrads earning degrees from Harvard University. But he's not sure he will feel the kind of joy he expected at commencement. 'I think it will be quite hard, to be honest,' Gerdén told CNN. Still, Gerdén is lucky. As a senior, he always planned for this to be his last semester at Harvard. Now, many other foreign scholars fear their own time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, could be cut short. Harvard's international students – who make up 27% of the university's enrollment – are the latest group caught in the crossfire of ideological warfare between their school and the Trump administration as it presses colleges across America to adopt policies aligned with its politics or face steep funding cuts. Thursday's commencement ceremony – capping off several days of celebrations – gives the university a chance to focus on its nearly four centuries of tradition. And Harvard has no desire to make waves. This year's keynote speaker is uncontroversial, and the sponsored affinity group events that so frustrated President Donald Trump have disappeared, a terse advisory on the school's website all that remains. But in the past, commencement has also given speakers and students their own opportunity for unscripted moments, with this week's happening as the institution is trying to carefully thread a needle with the White House between resistance and accommodation. The event will unfold as federal District Judge Allison Burroughs – in a courtroom just 6 miles from the music and cheering – hears arguments in a case that could determine whether those who plan to return to Harvard in the fall actually can come back. Inside the gleaming glass façade of the John Joseph Moakley US Courthouse overlooking Boston Harbor, attorneys for the nation's oldest institution of higher education are set to face off against lawyers representing the Trump administration over the government's attempt to block the university from accepting any international students. The ban, now on emergency pause by Burroughs, already has shaken some of the world's brightest thinkers at a school often heralded as a premier global hub of higher learning. 'I have no family in the US. I came here as an 18-, 19-year-old, and now I have to deal with all of this,' Harvard Undergraduate Association Co-President Abdullah Shahid Sial – a citizen of Pakistan – told CNN. 'Students feel very dehumanized, very demeaned and very disrespected.' Many now find themselves victims of circumstance – without the pomp they expected after years of diligent achievement. 'The day I opened that acceptance letter was probably the best day of my life,' Gerdén said. 'And now all of that hard work can just be taken away from us just like that.' Harvard has walked a careful tightrope since the Trump administration began targeting it on multiple fronts. On the one hand, it is now the face of resistance to White House efforts to reshape academic institutions in its own image, with two pending lawsuits against the government: one to lift its ban on international students and the other to unfreeze more than $2 billion in federal grants and contracts. But the university also has shied away from direct confrontation in more legally precarious areas. For instance, some efforts to promote 'viewpoint diversity' on campus are worthwhile, it has agreed, even as it fights the Trump administration's demands to directly oversee those efforts. And in response to Trump's executive order aiming to wipe out diversity, equity and inclusion programs nationwide, Harvard renamed and refocused its former Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging into an office of Community and Campus Life, 'cultivating a culture of belonging … for all,' the office's top officer wrote. But conciliation is not universal. More than 300 students on Tuesday protested the government's actions against Harvard with an on-campus rally, CNN affiliate WHDH reported. While that event was relatively constrained, commencement ceremonies bring another moment where events are not entirely under the control of the buttoned-down institution. 'Everyone is in a state of extreme uncertainty right now,' said Gerdén, who helped to organize Tuesday's protest. Harvard did not respond to requests from CNN to clarify whether students or speakers would be expected to limit political statements at commencement. Only one change from previous commencement week plans is noted on the Harvard website: the cancellation of all school-sponsored graduation celebrations for affinity groups after the Trump administration banned universities from using their own money to fund what it casts as 'segregation by race at graduation ceremonies.' 'Harvard will no longer provide funding, staffing, or spaces for end-of-year affinity celebrations,' the school's website states, although some groups have continued their events with private funding. Meanwhile, international students – and in many cases, the parents who sacrificed for their educations – will head Thursday through the wrought-iron gates of Harvard Yard for the university-wide graduation ceremony, now shrouded in uncertainty over the institution's future. 'Think about the families coming from all over the world for our graduation,' Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard president, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer last week. 'People who devoted their lives to making it possible for their kids to go to Harvard and to see them graduate now being told that somehow this is all being stopped because of a vendetta against Harvard.' 'I'm sorry,' he added, 'I just can't quite believe that this is happening in the United States.' A major question mark hanging over the commencement is whether any participants will make political statements at a time the university is trying to avoid any activity the Trump administration could use as a pretext for more punishment. Even the choice of who should deliver the keynote address at commencement can result in political backlash. Last year's speaker was Maria Ressa, a Filipina investigative journalist who won a Nobel Peace Prize for 'efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.' The choice of Ressa drew online criticism for her critical stance against Israel in the ongoing war against Hamas, a conflict at the heart of Trump's claims that elite campuses became breeding grounds for antisemitism. Ressa's response in her speech to her critics only intensified the outrage. 'Because I accepted your invitation to be here today, I was attacked online and called antisemitic by power and money because they want power and money,' Ressa said in her address. Ressa also removed part of her prepared remarks encouraging pro-Palestinian protesters to be more understanding of Jewish classmates, according to the final report from Harvard's Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias. Hundreds of graduating students walked out of last year's commencement as degrees were being conferred, some chanting and protesting the university's decision to deny graduation to some organizers of a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus that spring, Harvard Magazine reported. 'It was bad enough to have the disruption within the audience, the day of celebration violated,' Harvard Chabad founder Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi told Jewish news organization The Forward. 'But to have a program validate that and then to have her introduce her own antisemitic rhetoric. It was a sad day.' Ressa later said her comments on 'power and money' referred not to Jews but to Big Tech companies she had referred to earlier in the speech and 'people in power.' 'Still, if my words caused offense, I apologize,' she wrote. Ressa, who was a CNN journalist from 1987 to 2005, did not respond to CNN's requests for comment on her speech. This year's keynote speaker is unlikely to push as many political buttons. Dr Abraham Verghese – a physician, novelist and friend of Harvard President Alan Garber – is not known for taking controversial political stands. Representatives for Verghese did not return CNN's request for comment about his speech or whether the school asked to review it. Harvard doesn't have to look far into the past to see how commencements can turn unpredictable. At Columbia University graduation celebrations last week, school President Claire Shipman was booed at two events by students protesting the ongoing detention by immigration authorities of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student and lawful permanent US resident who played a key role in last year's contentious pro-Palestinian campus protests. The government has cited Khalil's 'antisemitic protests and disruptive activities' as reasons he should be deported. 'I know many in our community are mourning the absence of our graduate Mahmoud Khalil,' Shipman said as some students jeered and walked out. Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters chanted outside the university's locked gates, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported. As the educational institution sticking its neck out the farthest in fighting the Trump administration, Harvard is not anxious to provide any more potential fodder for claims it coddles rulebreakers and promotes extremism. Gerdén's walk across the stage will be followed by a previously scheduled scholarship master's program in the fall at a university in Beijing, China. 'It would be very crazy if I would have said a couple of years ago that it feels safer to go to China than to stay in the US right now,' he said. And with the future of thousands of students on the Harvard campus being debated in a courtroom just across the Charles River, Gerdén knows some changes may be permanent. 'I was looking forward to celebrating commencement,' he said, 'but now I might leave this place, and it will not look the same next semester.' CNN's Sara Sidner contributed to this report.
CNN
4 days ago
- General
- CNN
Harvard commencement clouded by fears and uncertainty in battle with Trump
COVERAGE NOTE: Follow CNN's live updates Thursday on Harvard's commencement ceremony and federal court hearing starting at 8 a.m. ET. From the time Leo Gerdén left his native Sweden, he has looked forward to this day, when he'll cross a stage as one of more than 1,700 undergrads earning degrees from Harvard University. But he's not sure he will feel the kind of joy he expected at commencement. 'I think it will be quite hard, to be honest,' Gerdén told CNN. Still, Gerdén is lucky. As a senior, he always planned for this to be his last semester at Harvard. Now, many other foreign scholars fear their own time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, could be cut short. Harvard's international students – who make up 27% of the university's enrollment – are the latest group caught in the crossfire of ideological warfare between their school and the Trump administration as it presses colleges across America to adopt policies aligned with its politics or face steep funding cuts. Thursday's commencement ceremony – capping off several days of celebrations – gives the university a chance to focus on its nearly four centuries of tradition. And Harvard has no desire to make waves. This year's keynote speaker is uncontroversial, and the sponsored affinity group events that so frustrated President Donald Trump have disappeared, a terse advisory on the school's website all that remains. But in the past, commencement has also given speakers and students their own opportunity for unscripted moments, with this week's happening as the institution is trying to carefully thread a needle with the White House between resistance and accommodation. The event will unfold as federal District Judge Allison Burroughs – in a courtroom just 6 miles from the music and cheering – hears arguments in a case that could determine whether those who plan to return to Harvard in the fall actually can come back. Inside the gleaming glass façade of the John Joseph Moakley US Courthouse overlooking Boston Harbor, attorneys for the nation's oldest institution of higher education are set to face off against lawyers representing the Trump administration over the government's attempt to block the university from accepting any international students. The ban, now on emergency pause by Burroughs, already has shaken some of the world's brightest thinkers at a school often heralded as a premier global hub of higher learning. 'I have no family in the US. I came here as an 18-, 19-year-old, and now I have to deal with all of this,' Harvard Undergraduate Association Co-President Abdullah Shahid Sial – a citizen of Pakistan – told CNN. 'Students feel very dehumanized, very demeaned and very disrespected.' Many now find themselves victims of circumstance – without the pomp they expected after years of diligent achievement. 'The day I opened that acceptance letter was probably the best day of my life,' Gerdén said. 'And now all of that hard work can just be taken away from us just like that.' Harvard has walked a careful tightrope since the Trump administration began targeting it on multiple fronts. On the one hand, it is now the face of resistance to White House efforts to reshape academic institutions in its own image, with two pending lawsuits against the government: one to lift its ban on international students and the other to unfreeze more than $2 billion in federal grants and contracts. But the university also has shied away from direct confrontation in more legally precarious areas. For instance, some efforts to promote 'viewpoint diversity' on campus are worthwhile, it has agreed, even as it fights the Trump administration's demands to directly oversee those efforts. And in response to Trump's executive order aiming to wipe out diversity, equity and inclusion programs nationwide, Harvard renamed and refocused its former Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging into an office of Community and Campus Life, 'cultivating a culture of belonging … for all,' the office's top officer wrote. But conciliation is not universal. More than 300 students on Tuesday protested the government's actions against Harvard with an on-campus rally, CNN affiliate WHDH reported. While that event was relatively constrained, commencement ceremonies bring another moment where events are not entirely under the control of the buttoned-down institution. 'Everyone is in a state of extreme uncertainty right now,' said Gerdén, who helped to organize Tuesday's protest. Harvard did not respond to requests from CNN to clarify whether students or speakers would be expected to limit political statements at commencement. Only one change from previous commencement week plans is noted on the Harvard website: the cancellation of all school-sponsored graduation celebrations for affinity groups after the Trump administration banned universities from using their own money to fund what it casts as 'segregation by race at graduation ceremonies.' 'Harvard will no longer provide funding, staffing, or spaces for end-of-year affinity celebrations,' the school's website states, although some groups have continued their events with private funding. Meanwhile, international students – and in many cases, the parents who sacrificed for their educations – will head Thursday through the wrought-iron gates of Harvard Yard for the university-wide graduation ceremony, now shrouded in uncertainty over the institution's future. 'Think about the families coming from all over the world for our graduation,' Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard president, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer last week. 'People who devoted their lives to making it possible for their kids to go to Harvard and to see them graduate now being told that somehow this is all being stopped because of a vendetta against Harvard.' 'I'm sorry,' he added, 'I just can't quite believe that this is happening in the United States.' A major question mark hanging over the commencement is whether any participants will make political statements at a time the university is trying to avoid any activity the Trump administration could use as a pretext for more punishment. Even the choice of who should deliver the keynote address at commencement can result in political backlash. Last year's speaker was Maria Ressa, a Filipina investigative journalist who won a Nobel Peace Prize for 'efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.' The choice of Ressa drew online criticism for her critical stance against Israel in the ongoing war against Hamas, a conflict at the heart of Trump's claims that elite campuses became breeding grounds for antisemitism. Ressa's response in her speech to her critics only intensified the outrage. 'Because I accepted your invitation to be here today, I was attacked online and called antisemitic by power and money because they want power and money,' Ressa said in her address. Ressa also removed part of her prepared remarks encouraging pro-Palestinian protesters to be more understanding of Jewish classmates, according to the final report from Harvard's Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias. Hundreds of graduating students walked out of last year's commencement as degrees were being conferred, some chanting and protesting the university's decision to deny graduation to some organizers of a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus that spring, Harvard Magazine reported. 'It was bad enough to have the disruption within the audience, the day of celebration violated,' Harvard Chabad founder Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi told Jewish news organization The Forward. 'But to have a program validate that and then to have her introduce her own antisemitic rhetoric. It was a sad day.' Ressa later said her comments on 'power and money' referred not to Jews but to Big Tech companies she had referred to earlier in the speech and 'people in power.' 'Still, if my words caused offense, I apologize,' she wrote. Ressa, who was a CNN journalist from 1987 to 2005, did not respond to CNN's requests for comment on her speech. This year's keynote speaker is unlikely to push as many political buttons. Dr Abraham Verghese – a physician, novelist and friend of Harvard President Alan Garber – is not known for taking controversial political stands. Representatives for Verghese did not return CNN's request for comment about his speech or whether the school asked to review it. Harvard doesn't have to look far into the past to see how commencements can turn unpredictable. At Columbia University graduation celebrations last week, school President Claire Shipman was booed at two events by students protesting the ongoing detention by immigration authorities of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student and lawful permanent US resident who played a key role in last year's contentious pro-Palestinian campus protests. The government has cited Khalil's 'antisemitic protests and disruptive activities' as reasons he should be deported. 'I know many in our community are mourning the absence of our graduate Mahmoud Khalil,' Shipman said as some students jeered and walked out. Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters chanted outside the university's locked gates, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported. As the educational institution sticking its neck out the farthest in fighting the Trump administration, Harvard is not anxious to provide any more potential fodder for claims it coddles rulebreakers and promotes extremism. Gerdén's walk across the stage will be followed by a previously scheduled scholarship master's program in the fall at a university in Beijing, China. 'It would be very crazy if I would have said a couple of years ago that it feels safer to go to China than to stay in the US right now,' he said. And with the future of thousands of students on the Harvard campus being debated in a courtroom just across the Charles River, Gerdén knows some changes may be permanent. 'I was looking forward to celebrating commencement,' he said, 'but now I might leave this place, and it will not look the same next semester.' CNN's Sara Sidner contributed to this report.
