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former Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi and Law professor Makau Mutua slam ban on international students.
Some Kenyan alumni of the coveted American university, Harvard, are not amused by a US government decision to ban the admission of international students to the Ivy League institution.
“Unacceptable”, “myopic” and “horrible” are among the adjectives some used to describe the move.
Former Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi, who obtained a master’s degree from Harvard while in exile in the early 1990s, described the move as “very myopic and unfortunate”.
“Knowledge has no borders,” he said in a text in response to a Nation query.
Former Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi.
Law professor Makau Mutua, who also obtained his master’s in law degree at Harvard in the 1980s, said the move is tantamount to victimisation of “innocent international students”.
“(It is) unacceptable,” he said.
The order, which was announced on Thursday by US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, means that if you are a Kenyan about to travel to Harvard University in the US for studies, the door has been slammed shut for you.
And any Kenyan already at Harvard risks falling into the “illegal immigrant” category unless they change universities.
Ms Noem said in a statement that she had ordered her department to terminate Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Programmme (SEVP) certification starting from the 2025-2026 school year.
She accused the university of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.
In response, Harvard said the move by the Trump administration – which affects thousands of students – was illegal and amounted to retaliation.
Institutional targets
The decision marked a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against the elite Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has emerged as one of Trump’s most prominent institutional targets. The move came after Harvard refused to provide information that Noem demanded about some foreign student visa holders at Harvard, the department said.
Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in the 2024-2025 school year, amounting to 27 percent of its total enrolment, according to university statistics.
According to Prof Mutua, what Mr Trump’s administration has done is “horrible to Harvard and other universities in the country”.
“American prosperity and innovation were led by the great American institutions of higher learning. Attacking them in a retaliatory manner goes against the basic predicates of the US Constitution and American values.
"As an alum of Harvard I am saddened and dismayed. I applaud the president of Harvard University, the faculty, staff, students, and the overwhelming majority of alums in rejecting this vicious government overreach.
"I believe the courts will side with Harvard and other colleges,” added Prof Mutua, who added the disclaimer that he was making the remarks in his personal capacity and not as President William Ruto’s adviser.
ODM leader Raila Odinga’s campaign spokesperson Makau Mutua.
He added: “[It] negatively impacts the universities themselves. It can’t be in America’s interests. [It] indisputably has the best universities in the world. Part of that excellence is because of international students and researchers.”
Notable alumni
Prof Mutua and Mr Murungi are among dozens of Kenyans who have been students at the prestigious institution. Others include politician and lecturer Julia Ojiambo, former Makueni governor Kivutha Kibwana, Court of Appeal judge Prof Joel Ngugi, and former cabinet secretaries Adan Mohamed and Henry Rotich.
In the list of notable alumni who have passed on are Hilary Ng’weno and Barack Obama Snr, the father of former US President Barack Obama.
To be able to take in more cohorts of international students, Harvard has to yield to a demand by the Trump administration.
In a letter to the institution, the US Homeland Security Secretary told Harvard that it could regain its certification by turning over within 72 hours a raft of records about foreign students, including any video or audio of their protest activity in the past five years.
Harvard called the government's action “unlawful” and said it was “fully committed” to educating foreign students.
“This retaliatory action threatens serious harm to the Harvard community and our country, and undermines Harvard's academic and research mission,” the university said in a statement.
Trump crackdown
Mr Trump has already frozen some $3 billion (Sh387.8 billion) in federal grants to Harvard in recent weeks, leading the university to sue to restore the funding.
In a separate lawsuit related to Mr Trump’s efforts to terminate the legal status of hundreds of foreign students across the US, a federal judge ruled on Thursday that the administration could not end their status without following proper regulatory procedures. It was not immediately clear how that ruling would affect the action against Harvard.
US President Donald Trump reacts during a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission event, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 22, 2025.
During an interview with Fox News’ ‘The Story with Martha MacCallum’, Ms Noem was asked if she was considering similar moves at other universities, including Columbia University in New York.
“Absolutely, we are,” Ms Noem said. “This should be a warning to every other university to get your act together.”
By Friday evening, Harvard had announced that it was going to sue the Trump administration.
The university’s president Alan Garber, while announcing the suit in a letter to the Harvard community, noted: “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
