Cambridge city councilors, Harvard faculty, hold rally against Trump administration
Members of the Cambridge City Council held a rally on Saturday against several moves taken by President Donald Trump's administration against Harvard University.
The rally comes after hundreds of faculty and staff penned a letter to Harvard asking the university to defend free speech and the right to education.
Last week, the Trump administration revoked dozens of international student's visas, including those of seven current Harvard students and five recent graduates.
City councilors in Cambridge called on Harvard to stand up for academic freedom.
"This is not about internal deliberation at Harvard. This is about the repercussions statewide and quite frankly nationwide," Councilor Patty Nolan said.
More than 800 Harvard faculty members are also taking action, signing a letter for Harvard to condemn attacks on universities.
The rally took place on Cambridge Common in Harvard Square from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday.
Organizers said the rally drew close to 500 people, including foreign students from Harvard who are in the U.S. on visas.
"If I don't speak up right now, I don’t know who will," Harvard student Abdullah Shahid Sial said on stage at the rally.
Shahid Sial is a Harvard student from Pakistan. Joining him on stage were Harvard students Karl Molden from Austria and Leo Gerden from Sweden.
All three said they are afraid of losing their visas for speaking out against Harvard and the Trump administration.
"If any of us get deported tomorrow for being here or any of our international friends for speaking their minds, we want Harvard to guarantee that we can graduate," Gerden said.
At the rally, students, faculty and alumni gathered to tell the university to push back on the Trump administration for demanding Harvard reform and dismantle many programs on campus or risk losing federal funding.
"This is ridiculous," Allison Sanders-Flemming said, who graduated Harvard in 1977. "If you don’t stand up to a bully, anyone who thinks a deal with Trump will help them is crazy. I mean, we just see it."
Speakers pointed to the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts graduate student who was arrested in Somerville this spring by federal agents and taken to a federal facility in Louisiana after penning a pro-Palestinian op-ed piece in her college newspaper.
"It is an attack on 18,000 students enrolled in Massachusetts colleges and universities," Harvard professor Kirsten Weld said. "Several of them have already had their visas arbitrarily revoked, and the rest are terrified that they will be next."
During the rally, foreign students kept the pressure on Harvard.
"I have a responsibility to fight for their safety. for their freedom, and right now, the Harvard administration isn’t doing any of that," Shahid Sial said.
Harvard had no comment on the rally, and there was no opposition.
Organizers said the school will lose hundreds of millions by disobeying the Trump administration when it comes to education and that is why Harvard should spend some of its $50 billion endowment to remain free and independent.