On Tuesday, the US General Services Administration (GSA) sent a letter to federal agencies instructing them to provide a list of all terminated contracts with Harvard by June 6, or to request an extension to the deadline to terminate all federal contracts with Harvard University. The letter declares, “Going forward, we also encourage your agency to seek alternative vendors for future services where you had previously considered Harvard.”

This latest attack on the university by the Trump administration threatens all remaining federal funding to Harvard worth an estimated total of $100 million dollars. It marks an intensification of the financial pressure placed on Harvard, following the freezing of $3.2 billion in grants and the threat to end the university’s tax-exempt status.

The letter once again repeats the Big Lie that opposition to the genocide against Gaza is motivated by “antisemitism,” and student protesters represent “threats” and “discrimination” against Jewish students.

“GSA is also aware of recent events at Harvard University involving anti-Semitic action that suggest the institution has a disturbing lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students,” the letter notes, justifying the cutoff of funding. “Harvard’s ongoing inaction in the face of repeated and severe harassment and targeting of its students has at times grounded day-to-day campus operations to a halt, deprived Jewish students of learning and research opportunities to which they are entitled, and profoundly alarmed the general public.”

The GSA letter also deepens the Trump administration’s campaign against what it calls “discriminatory practices” and “DEI,” describing Harvard’s introductory math courses as “middle school math” and blaming the admission of African American students for the introduction of remedial math courses.

The effort to fully cut off Harvard’s federal funding coincided with the State Department’s pause of all interviews for pending and future student visas, to block any new international students from enrolling at US universities and allow for the construction of an ideological screening system, to target any opposition to the American-Israeli genocide of Palestinians. 

“Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued [in a separate telegram],” the cable declares. 

Marco Rubio, secretary of state and head of the State Department, for his part has boasted about his efforts to revoke thousands of student visas, working in tandem with far-right forces including the fascist Zionist group Betar, in the selection of students targeted for removal.

The Trump administration has openly declared that it is preparing a framework for a pseudo-legal ban on international students on the basis of their political viewpoints. This is a dangerous escalation in Trump’s preparations for dictatorship in the United States. Unless stopped by a massive intervention of the working class, the proscription of international students on the basis of their political viewpoints will be expanded to include the criminalization of any criticism of Trump himself. 

The termination of the remaining contracts and federal funding to Harvard is yet another twist of the arm the Trump administration has put in place in order to extract from Harvard concessions to its authoritarian program, including the disciplinary records and surveillance of all students, including US citizens going back five years. 

The latest attack is retaliation against Harvard for the lawsuit the university filed against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which won a temporary restraining order, reversing the effort by DHS to block Harvard from admitting international students. DHS would have forced nearly 6,800 students, 27 percent of Harvard’s student body, to either transfer to another university or flee the country. 

The Trump administration seeks to transform all institutions of higher education into arms of the surveillance state and tools for propaganda. It has demanded direct control over curriculum at several Harvard departments.

These attacks are not only directed at academic freedom and freedom of speech, but are a component of the attack on science and research. The contracts include funding for studies with the National Institutes of Health. Commentary in the mainstream media has raised concerns over the threat of a “brain-drain”— a mass exodus of scientists and scientific research as a result. 

Notable is the cowardice of professional associations and trade unions in the face of these attacks on democratic rights. The National Association of Foreign Student Advisors (NAFSA), Association of International Educators declined to comment on the pausing of new student visa interviews in an article in Politico. The NAFSA/Association of International Educators silence is not an isolated phenomenon. The trade unions, including many academic worker unions organized under the leadership of the UAW, broadly support Trump’s agenda of economic nationalism.

The working class must respond to the attack on Harvard and international students across the country. The attack on international students and the campaign to destroy any limitations on government influence or control of academic institutions, alongside the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to conduct mass deportations, are a critical part of the Trump administration’s drive to establish a presidential dictatorship.

Notwithstanding the legal challenges which Harvard has put up to the Trump administration and its victories thus far in the courts, no confidence can be placed in either the heads of the universities or the courts to carry out the fight against dictatorship. 

The defense of democratic rights and academic freedom depends on the conscious intervention of the working class. The Socialist Equality Party and its youth movement, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), call for the organization of industrial and political action in support of Harvard students and all those under attack. Rank-and-file committees must be established at every university and workplace to coordinate resistance across industries.

The ultimate target in the attack on democratic rights is the working class. The ruling class fears the working class as the only social force capable of challenging its rule. The defense of democratic rights cannot be separated from the building of a conscious, socialist leadership in the working class, which must be unified in a revolutionary struggle against capitalism internationally.