More than 300 people gathered at the Science Center at Harvard University May 27 to rally against President Donald Trump’s administration for attempting to block the institution’s ability to enroll international students.

Harvard has been a prominent target of Trump, who has revoked billions in funding from the university, threatened its tax exempt status and subjected it to numerous federal investigations. The recent rally was in response to the administration’s move to block Harvard’s access to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, effectively barring it from enrolling international students. On May 29, a federal judge said she would issue a temporary order to block the Trump administration’s ability to bar international students from enrolling in Harvard.

The rally was organized by Harvard Students for Freedom, an unofficial student organization, and word spread through social media.

Nuriel Vera-DeGraff, a rising fourth-year at Harvard studying mathematics and social studies who was an organizer for the event, described it as a fight against the Trump administration’s efforts to strip away “constitutional values of freedom of expression, freedom of speech and assembly.”

“It’s very important for the entirety of not only people involved in higher education but just the average American citizen to keep your eyes on this and see what Trump is doing to universities,” Vera-DeGraff said in an interview with The Huntington News. “Because what Trump is doing to universities is merely the beginning, and that’s what we’ve been saying since day one, is that he starts with the universities, and within the universities, he starts with protestors — now international students — but eventually it’s not going to be just universities.”

Students for Freedom formed this past semester following Trump’s attacks on Harvard’s funding and international student population, Vera-DeGraff said. Students for Freedom grew over the past two months, and Vera-DeGraff joined the group after a rally in Cambridge Common in early April. 

“This organization has come together to unite students from across the political spectrum, from across different ideological divides to fight the common threat of the Trump administration against higher education and against democracy in the United States,” Vera-DeGraff said.

The rally started with Emil Massad, a graduating senior at Harvard, standing on a table stage and playing “Bella Ciao” with his trumpet. What followed was a group of speakers advocating for increased protections for international students while the crowd before them chanted “Shame” in objection to the Trump administration.

One of the speakers was Jacob Miller, a graduating senior at Harvard studying mathematics with a concurrent master’s degree in statistics and former president of Harvard Hillel, who spoke about his grandmother who was expelled from the University of Vienna in 1938 because she was Jewish.

“Today, three generations later, I stand before you today at one of the premier universities of our age, watching my peers face removal because of their nationality,” Miller said in his speech. “Antisemitism is a real problem — both at Harvard and around the country. But make no mistake: These actions have absolutely nothing to do with combating antisemitism. They are only aimed at dividing us apart. As a Jew at Harvard, I’ve come here to say: We stand with our international peers.”

Students from several other Boston universities were in the crowd, including a couple dozen Northeastern students carrying signs to show solidarity with Harvard. 

“We’re looking to support Harvard and their international students, but also show Northeastern that this is important for any school, particularly a school with such a big international student population. We help galvanize Boston-wide support,” said AB Boudreau, a rising second-year philosophy, politics, and economics major at Northeastern.

Boudreau mentioned they heard about the protest through an unofficial student organization at Northeastern called the Educational Freedom Project, which aims to be a hub for concerned students to take action during the second Trump administration. The project is also part of a network of organizations within the Boston area, including Harvard Students for Freedom, that are taking a stand against the Trump administration’s attempts to exert its influence on higher education institutions.

“Whether you’re an international student or not, international students being at universities is crucial to the learning, the teaching, the opportunity and everything that makes a university a good university…everybody’s got to step up,” Boudreau said.

Northeastern School of Law professor Rachel Rosenbloom was among the Northeastern crowd at the event. She came to show support for international students not just at Harvard, but at Northeastern and across the country. 

“We’re all in this environment. We all need to stand together to protect universities, to protect academic freedom, to protect international students, to protect all of our students,” Rosenbloom said in an interview with The News. “I know it’s a very difficult time for universities, but the only way that universities will be able to fight attacks is by sticking together.”

Leo Gerdén, an international student from Sweden and a graduating senior studying economics and government at Harvard, gave the closing speech. In April, he wrote an op-ed in the Crimson calling on Harvard and other top universities to take collective action against the Trump administration.

“I can no longer count how many times people have told me that what I’m doing is too risky. That I need to get a lawyer. That I should be careful with what I say. That, my friends, should be proof enough that this country is on a very, very dangerous track,” Gerdén told the crowd.

Gerdén explained how dehumanizing the attacks have been for Harvard’s international students, making him and others feel like they are “collateral” in the negotiations between the university and the government. He expects that uncertainty among international students will prevent them from wanting to come to universities in the United States to study or research.

“We’re not going to let Harvard give in to any of Trump’s demands because then he would just simply come back for more. We have to fight back and we have to stand up for our independence,” Gerdén said in an interview with The News.

Gerdén plans to continue the effort as he graduates and starts Harvard’s Schwarzman Scholarship program — a one-year, fully funded master’s program in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

“We’re going to continue. We have a bunch of media that we’re going to do, but then we’re going to try and follow the situation over the summer, try and build a better movement across campuses over the summer,” Gerdén said. “So focusing on that, and then the fight is going to continue because this is going to be a marathon for the next three years and eight months at least.”

Gallery • 11 Photos

Margot Murphy

Harvard Professor of Government Ryan Enos addresses the crowd. Professors, students and graduates spoke out against the Trump administration and encouraged the crowd to protect international students.