Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth doesn’t know if she’ll be able to go back to Harvard

Donald Trump and his administration are hyper-fixated on taking down Harvard, one of America’s oldest and most respected universities. The Trump administration has been trying to control the private university since January, basically. Trump has threatened to remove Harvard’s tax-exempt status, frozen billions in federal grants and tried to dictate the hiring and firing of academic staff. The latest attack on Harvard is this: the Trump administration has now banned foreign students from returning for the fall semester. The explicit threat is to cancel all of the student visas specifically for Harvard students. Harvard has around 6,800 international students, the majority of whom are enrolled in the graduate programs (masters, PhDs, etc). These are literally some of the best and brightest from all around the world. One of the foreign students is a princess and heiress to the throne of Belgium:

Belgium’s Royal Palace said Friday that Princess Elisabeth, who is first in line to the throne, is waiting to find out whether she can return to Harvard for her second year after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ban on foreign students at the university.

The Trump administration on Thursday revoked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students in its escalating battle with the Ivy League school, saying thousands of students must transfer to other schools or leave the country.

“We are looking into the situation, to see what kind of impact this decision might have on the princess, or not. It’s too early to say right now,” said the palace’s communications head, Xavier Baert. Baert said that Princess Elisabeth, aged 23, has completed her first year of a graduate school program at Harvard and would spend the summer back in Belgium. “And we’ll have to see what happens next year,” he said.

The princess is the first of four children born to King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, and has been studying for a Master in Public Policy. Last year, she obtained a degree in history and politics at Lincoln College at Oxford in the U.K.

Harvard enrolls almost 6,800 foreign students at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accounting for more than a quarter of its student body. Most are graduate students, coming from more than 100 countries. The university filed a lawsuit on Friday in federal court in Boston, saying that the Trump administration’s action violates the First Amendment and will have an “immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and more than 7,000 visa holders.”

[From The Associated Press]

The American government canceling the student visa of the heiress to the Belgian throne is a pretty catastrophic look for America and American universities. Not for nothing, but many of these international students come from wealthy and/or powerful families too – that’s how they can afford to come to America for their graduate degrees in the first place. American universities are the recipients of the world’s brain drain – some of the smartest young people come to America for their undergraduate and graduate degrees. This will have a much larger effect, even if the courts reverse the Trump administration’s unhinged order. Like, if you have the money and means, why would a wealthy European or Asian family send their kid to America for school anymore if this kind of thing can happen?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.