The Final International at Harvard

Just two weeks ago, while thousands of students celebrated the commencement at Harvard under a spring sun, Alan Garber, the university president, received a standing ovation after delivering a seemingly innocuous remark: “Welcome, graduates… from nearby, from all over the country, and from around the world.” The pause before “from around the world” was deliberate. The emphasis, unmistakable. “From around the world, as it should be,” he concluded amid thunderous applause. In any other graduation ceremony, these words would have gone unnoticed. But in Harvard during Trump’s second presidency, every gesture defending internationalism has become an act of resistance. And I, a Spanish visiting researcher in the heart of Cambridge, Massachusetts, could be part of the last generation of international scholars if the former president succeeds in his judicial battle against the oldest university in the United States.

I have been studying at Harvard how liberal democracies die not from frontal attacks, but through the perverse instrumentalization of noble causes. My research at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies focuses precisely on how antidemocratic movements hijack liberal flags—feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, environmentalism—to undermine democratic institutions from within. I never imagined that my own status as an international researcher would become a real-time case study.

Trump and his administration have perfected this art of instrumentalization. Under the pretext of combating antisemitism on university campuses—a genuine and necessary cause—they have launched an unprecedented attack on Harvard. The equation is devilishly simple: accuse the university of tolerating antisemitism, demand draconian changes to its academic governance, and when Harvard refuses to cede its autonomy, punish it by cutting $3 billion in federal funds and revoking its ability to enroll international students. It is the same pattern I have documented in my research on “homonationalism”: using the defense of LGBTQ+ rights to justify xenophobic policies against “homophobic” Muslims. Or invoking feminism to ban the hijab. Noble causes turned into Trojan horses of authoritarianism.

What is at stake transcends my J-1 visa or the 6,800 international students who make up 27% of Harvard’s student body. The United States is committing a spectacular act of academic self-sabotage. As China climbs positions in the Nature Index with nine of the ten best scientific research institutions, Trump declares war on the only American university still at the top of that list: Harvard.

The numbers are staggering. International students contribute over $40 billion annually to the U.S. economy and sustain 380,000 jobs. In the ten largest tech companies in the country, half are led by immigrants. Elon Musk would not have built Tesla in the U.S. if Trump’s anti-foreign student policies had existed when he arrived from South Africa. Sergei Brin would not have developed Google. Jensen Huang would not have created Nvidia.

But the damage goes beyond economic metrics. The fight against Harvard is not just a battle against a university; it is against an idea. The idea that talent has no passport, that knowledge knows no borders, that the best minds in the world can gather in one place to push the boundaries of human knowledge.

Let me be personal. This year at Harvard has transformed my way of thinking and researching. I have engaged in theoretical debates about democracy, electoral systems, or polarization with the leading experts in political behavior, but also with top historians and economists. I have refined my experimental methodology in seminars where excellence is not an aspiration but the starting point. I have become convinced that true research transcends academic disciplines and the nationalities of those who practice it.

The paradox is cruel. While I research how political and social identities can be manipulated to erode liberal democracy, I see how my own status as an international scholar becomes ammunition in Trump’s culture war.

For now, the courts have temporarily blocked Trump’s most draconian actions. Judge Allison Burroughs has prevented the immediate cancellation of visas while the case is litigated. But the damage is already done. Searches for U.S. doctoral programs have fallen between 25% and 40%, while those for Australian and Swiss universities have surged. Dozens of brilliant scholars who would have chosen the United States are looking towards other horizons.

What we are witnessing is not just an attack on Harvard or on international students. It is an assault on the very idea of knowledge as a universal enterprise, and Europeans should recognize the pattern. Trump is not innovating; he is importing. His attack on universities closely follows the playbook of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, who expelled Central European University from Budapest, or that of Vladimir Putin, who has closed or controlled dozens of independent academic institutions in Russia.

The lesson for Spain and Europe is clear: authoritarian tactics travel. What works in Budapest or Moscow is tested in Washington, and what succeeds in Washington may be attempted in Madrid or Amsterdam. Universities are not random targets in this global culture war. They are, along with independent media and the judiciary, the last counterweights of critical thinking and democratic resistance.

My research on the instrumentalization of noble causes to destroy liberal democracy has never been so urgent or so personal. Because now I do not study the phenomenon from academic distance; I live it firsthand. And as I write these lines from my office in Cambridge, with the J-1 visa that may be among the last that Harvard can sponsor, I understand that my generation of European scholars has a historic responsibility.

We must document, analyze, and above all, design protocols for democratic resistance. Because when the search for truth—the “veritas” that adorns Harvard’s shield—becomes the enemy of the state, it is not just a university that is in danger. It is one of the last springs of the liberal democracy structure.

Alberto López Ortega, adjunct professor at the Free University of Amsterdam. Ramón Areces Fellow and visiting professor 2024-2025, Harvard University.