Harvard students rally against Trump's attacks on the university

WCCO-AM / 830 WCCO

Harvard students held a rally on Tuesday, protesting against President Donald Trump's attacks on the prestigious institution.

Transcript

00:00Our voice is loud and clear, every student's welcome here, every student's welcome here,

00:15in education we believe.

00:18Thank you, and now let's please work out with a link in the bio, thank you.

00:23And now, stand up fight back, what do we do?

00:28Stand up fight back!

00:36If there is anything to learn from this Jewish history,

00:39it's that when we push people out of our schools because of their identity,

00:44it's a symptom of a morally bankrupt politics.

00:48That is why the administration's excuse for these policies, that they somehow address anti-Semitism, are so absurd.

01:01Let's be clear, this has nothing to do with combating anti-Semitism.

01:07Anti-Semitism is a real problem, it's a problem at Harvard, it's a problem in our country.

01:14But these policies will do nothing to combat this age-old hatred.

01:18Instead, they are designed to divide us apart.

01:22And so I'm here today to tell you that the Jewish community rejects this administration's narrative.

01:28Freedom of speech and due process, these are the foundations of the American system.

01:36These are the foundations of a free society.

01:39But Donald Trump is attacking these freedoms, but they get in the way of his authoritarian takeover.

01:45This is what authoritarians do.

01:48Trump has begun a dangerous march to roll back civil rights in this country.

01:54We've seen his vicious, racist attacks on speech and diversity,

01:59and his alliance with far-right billionaires who amplify fascist rhetoric.

02:05The attack on Harvard and its international students is part of a deeper effort to disfund and dismantle the academic world.

02:13It's an attempt to re-root our brightest researchers into private corporations, stripping academic institutions of their power.

02:20Trump is using our international students as a bargaining chip.

02:24He's threatening to revoke our school's hosting status unless we turn over a massive amount of disciplinary information and surveillance.

02:34This is information we are not legally required to give.

02:40And once he has it, he will use it for his own nefarious ends.

02:45He will use it to attack student protesters like all of you standing here today.

02:49Shame!

02:51Trump is also proposing just now to review the social media feeds of student visa applicants,

02:59presumably so that he can screen out those who disagree with him.

03:03Shame!

03:05When Trump demands viewpoint diversity at our university, it's clear what he really means.

03:13He wants to control what our students say, think and believe.

03:17Shame!

03:20What the international students are caught in right now is just a limbo.

03:23It is going back and forth, going to go back and forth in the courts.

03:26We're probably going to have to wait up until it reaches the Supreme Court, until we know something for sure.

03:31And in the meantime, just the uncertainty itself deters people from coming to this country to do research and to study.

03:40And it's really going to threaten the U.S. position at the forefront of innovation and research.

03:47Because a place like Harvard, what makes Harvard Harvard is not its legacy or its endowment or anything like that.

03:53It's its ability to bring back the best and the brightest from all around the world,

03:57put us in the same dining halls, put us in the same classrooms.

04:00And that is what is under threat right now.

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