Harvard University could be barred from taking on foreign students. File photo. Photo: AFP/Maddie Meyer
New Zealand universities must stand up for Harvard as the Trump administration attempts to stop it from enrolling international students, a local law professor says.
The Trump administration last week barred the elite Massachusetts-based Ivy League university from taking on foreign students, although a judge has blocked the move until Harvard's case is heard in court.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused the university of "fostering violence, anti-Semitism, and co-ordinating with the Chinese Communist Party".
Harvard has rejected the allegations and said the attempt to ban international enrolments was illegal.
Waikato University law professor Al Gillespie said New Zealand universities must stand up for Harvard.
"You've got to make sure that the freedoms for universities to teach things in ways which are sometimes unpalatable, are defended, and that that role of critic and conscience is underlined," he said.
"There's often a tendency right now to push back on views which are unpopular, and in a liberal democracy that must be resisted."
Former Massey University vice-chancellor and Labour minister Steve Maharey said New Zealand universities also had to defend themselves as places that championed diverse thought.
"I think one of the things we can do here is to uphold that, and make sure that we're seen as a country that still values the university and not just some narrow version of it, and certainly not one that agrees with the government of the day.
"Of course there'll be people who will agree, but there'll be people who won't agree, and that's what should be going on at a university, there ought to be that dialogue. We ought to defend that."
Maharey expected universities would speak out and write letters of support to Harvard.
They should also prepare to welcome the world's brightest students who may decide against studying in the US, he said.
"If the US becomes an unlikely place for a top student to want to come to, then of course other countries are going to benefit from that because they might get a share of those outstanding students.
"We ought to keep the door open and say 'if you can't go there, then you ought to come here'."
Universities New Zealand, which represents the country's eight universities, declined to comment.
- additional reporting by Reuters
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