Former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers is responding to the Trump administration’s decision to block Harvard University from enrolling foreign students, particularly those from Israel. (Each year more than 100 students and scholars from Israel study at Harvard.)
Summers, who was President of Harvard from 2001-06, wrote on X: “The @realDonaldTrump Administration sending every Israeli student home from @Harvard is much more discriminatory against Jews than anything Harvard has ever done by any definition.”
The @realDonaldTrump Administration sending every Israeli student home from @Harvard is much more discriminatory against Jews than anything Harvard has ever done by any definition.
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) May 23, 2025
Harvard graduate David Shaywitz, MD, PhD, who lectures on biomedical informatics at his alma mater, replied to Summers: “I guess removing targets is one way to address on-campus anti-Israel animus…evocative of Harvard President Lowell’s justification in 1922 when he aggressively pushed for quotas (as discussed in this 1971 Commentary article, ‘How Jewish Quotas Began’).
I guess removing targets is one way to address on-campus anti-Israel animus…evocative of Harvard President Lowell’s justification in 1922 when he aggressively pushed for quotas (as discussed in this 1971 @Commentary @jpodhoretz @SethAMandel @EliLake ) https://t.co/N0c90Uvc6O pic.twitter.com/yfMwOznWjh
— David Shaywitz (@DShaywitz) May 23, 2025
Note: According to the Harvard International Office, there are currently 2,126 students and scholars at the university from China; 769 from Canada; 402 from the United Kingdom; 305 from France; 73 from Russia; 54 from Saudi Arabia; 53 from Ukraine; 35 from South Africa; 14 from United Arab Emirates; and 1 from the Gaza Strip.