When Óscar Escobar, 35, culminated his mandate as the youngest elected mayor in his hometown, Colombia, in 2023, was accepted in a program of the John F. Kennedy Government School of Harvard University, designed for candidates for global leaders like him.
If the Trump administration goes out with theirs, Escobar could be one of the latest foreign students in the foreseeable future in attending the Kennedy school, widely considered one of the best institutions in the world to prepare future legislators.
Last month, the National Security Department tried to revoke the Harvard Faculty to enroll international students and force those who were there to transfer or lose their legal status. He accused the University of “promoting violence, anti -Semitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”
At the beginning of June, President Donald Trump redoubled his efforts by issuing a proclamation that prohibited the entrance to the United States from foreigners who planned to study in Harvard and ordered the State Department to consider the revocation of the visas of those who were already enrolled. Trump argued that Harvard had tolerated crime on campus and that his relations with China threatened national security.
Harvard said that the orders, which affect thousands of students, were illegal and were equivalent to retaliation for rejecting the government’s demands to control their governance and curriculum, among other things. He said he was addressing concerns about anti -Semitism and threats to the campus.
A federal judge temporarily blocked both orders while the courts review the legal challenges, but if they are maintained, they would represent a hard blow for Harvard, and for the Kennedy school in particular.
In the last five years, 52% of Kennedy students come from outside the United States, the school press office reported. With students from more than 100 countries, it is Harvard’s “most global” school.
White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, declared that the proclamation “is carefully designed to limit the risks that foreign students in Harvard can represent for national security and campus security.”
Read more: Harvard urges a judge to prohibit Trump closing the doors to international students
The great foreign contingent is one of the main reasons why the school has been so successful as a training center for future leaders, including Americans, said Nicholas Burns, professor at the Kennedy School and former American Diplomatic.
“It’s intentional,” Burns said in an interview, referring to the number of international students. “It is a decision that made the direction of the Kennedy school because the world reproduces as it is.”
The Kennedy school has an impressive list of foreign leaders among their alumni, including Mexican president Felipe Calderón and the Canadian minister Pierre Trudeau.
Another is Maia Sandu, who was chosen president of Moldova in 2020 after graduating. Since then, it has become an important regional voice against Russian influence, leading the country’s effort to join the European Union and opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“In Harvard I met interesting people from all over the world, each with their own history,” Sandu said in a speech delivered in 2022 against the Kennedy School’s graduates. “And, very soon, I realized that my country was not the only one who had been fighting for decades. I understood that development takes time.”
Kennedy School and its value for powers ‘soft power’
For those who defend school, foreign students contribute more benefits than risks. They claim that educating the future world leaders implies promoting the American “soft power.”
The Prime Minister of Singapore, Lawrence Wong, a graduate of the Kennedy school that must now deal with the rivalry between the United States and China in Southeast Asia, recognized the influence of American culture on it.
He says he decided to study in the United States in part because his favorite musicians were Americans. Last year, Wong published a video on Tiktok where he appeared playing “Love Song” by Taylor Swift with the acoustic guitar, dedicating the performance to teachers.
Without a doubt, the Kennedy school generated controversies, including criticism about who he accepts in his programs and who invites to teach and talk to his students.
A remarkable example occurred in 2022, when the Carr Center for Kennedy Human Rights Policy offered a scholarship to Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, and then rescinded it. Roth then stated that he believed that the University gave in to the pressure of the supporters of Israel, who believed that HRW had an antiisraeli bias. Kennedy denied it, but finally changed posture to generalized criticisms that he was limiting the debate.
Smiling while posing for graduation photos with his family in May, Escobar said it was a bittersweet moment to complete his studies in Kennedy.
“If this university can no longer receive international students, of course we are losing a chance,” said Escobar, who since then has returned to Colombia to work in the presidential campaign of the leftist policy Claudia López, also Harvard’s exbecaria.
“If what President Donald Trump wants is for the United States to be great again, it will be a mistake.”
With Reuters information
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