“Students should not come on campus and be afraid to be there and not feel safe to be on campus,” McMahon added.
The secret acknowledged that the universities have taken positive steps to combat what she said was growing antisemitism on campus, but credited Trump for pushing them to do so.
“I’m really happy to see what Harvard did, but I wonder if maybe they didn’t get a little spur from our action, because they talk a lot about it, but I think we really started to see a lot of their actions once we were taking action,” McMahon said.
Her comments came after Trump on Wednesday signed a proclamation that aims to deny visas for foreign students seeking to study at Harvard. A federal judge in May had blocked Trump from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students.
Asked directly about whether international students already enrolled at Harvard would have to leave the U.S. due to Trump’s proclamation, McMahon demurred, saying, “Well, that’s actually more up to the State Department than it is to Department of Education,” and reiterating that, “we have to do more careful vetting.”
She echoed Trump’s comments in the Oval Office on Thursday, when he told reporters that he had no problem with Harvard enrolling foreign students, as long as their names were disclosed to the federal government.
“We want to have foreign students come. We’re very honored by it, but we want to see their list,” Trump said during a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
“Harvard didn’t want to give us the list. They’re going to be giving us the list now. I think they’re starting to behave, actually, if you want to know the truth,” the president added.
