Harvard athletes face uncertainty over Trump’s attempt to block international students

The Trump administration’s move to bar international students from attending Harvard could have wide-ranging implications for the university’s eclectic athletics program.

While a federal judge Friday issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s edict regarding international students at Harvard, the school’s athletes may not have much time to decide their next steps, depending on their sport.

Harvard’s athletic department includes 42 Division I sports teams, the highest number in the nation. A review of the university’s online rosters for the 2024-25 season found 182 athletes across all sports listed international hometowns.

Athletes who have earned a degree can enter the NCAA’s transfer portal at any time and be immediately eligible after transferring. At Ivy League schools, which do not allow athletes to participate beyond four years, it is fairly common for athletes who still have NCAA eligibility remaining to go to non-Ivy schools as graduate transfers.

NCAA rules allow undergraduate athletes to transfer and be immediately eligible to compete at a new school if they enter their names in the transfer portal during sport-specific periods.

Transfer windows have come and gone for sports that have concluded their seasons. For example, the basketball portal period was March 24 to April 22 for men and March 25 to April 23 for women. Hockey’s transfer window was March 30 to May 13 for men and March 16 to April 29 for women.

Harvard officials did not respond to requests for comment.

The NCAA declined to comment on the situation, but it could be facing questions about what to do if the school’s international athletes want to transfer because of the ongoing dispute between the university and the Trump administration.

A spokesperson from the Ivy League Athletic Conference also declined to comment.

Harvard’s men’s basketball roster lists two undergraduates with hometowns from outside the United States. The women’s basketball roster also lists two players with foreign hometowns. The leading scorer on Harvard’s men’s hockey team is Mick Thompson, a first-year player and one of several Canadians listed on the roster.

For many sports still in progress, such as baseball, softball and lacrosse, NCAA transfer windows will remain open for several weeks.

NCAA policy allows it to waive transfer windows under certain circumstances to address events outside an athlete’s control. For example, the NCAA has historically granted waivers for immediate eligibility to athletes competing at schools where their sports programs have shut down. But it is unclear if a similar standard would apply if Harvard’s international students had to leave the school, or wanted to, because of the ongoing dispute.

Though the policy change is on hold due to the temporary restraining order, the Trump administration’s latest tactics have some former Harvard athletes concerned about the future.

In a letter to Harvard on Thursday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that her department was revoking the university’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification.

Noem said the decision was a result of Harvard’s “refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policies.”

British rower David Ambler graduated from Harvard in 2020. Four years later, he helped Great Britain win bronze in rowing at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Ambler, 27, said attending Harvard was a life-changing experience, something he’d wish all international students could have an opportunity to do. The fear that the Trump administration’s efforts could negate that is genuine.

“From my side, I’m disappointed for future students and future student athletes that there is a possibility that they wouldn’t have the same opportunity that I did,” Ambler said Friday. “I’ve seen the value it’s provided me, and, looking forward, it’s one thing I would like other people to have.”

Ambler said Harvard’s worldwide draw allowed him to meet many different people with varying perspectives on life, a strength of the nation’s oldest university.

“The ability to bring people together from everywhere creates a learning environment that creates, frankly, one that is unparalleled,” he said. “Harvard, sporting-wise, is an excellent university and has a range of sports where it’s routinely competing in the top of the country or it’s sending multiple athletes to the Olympics.”

Former tennis player James Blake spent his freshman and sophomore years at Harvard in 1998 and 1999 before turning professional. Blake, who rose to become No. 4 in the world during his career, said he’s spoken to several other former Harvard athletes this week about the Trump administration taking aim at the university.

“It seems pretty obvious it’s trying to do damage to Harvard because of a petty fight from the Trump administration,” Blake said Friday. “There’s supposed to be a Republican mantra of ‘less government,’ and they’re imposing government on a private institution that’s been around since 1636, which has been one of the absolute bastions of higher education. It’s sad it even has a chance of going through, and if it does, it severely hinders the opportunities of international students and student athletes to get the best education possible.”

During his years at Harvard, Blake said the Crimson men’s tennis team finished ranked No. 17 and No. 19 in the country. He had four international teammates on those teams. Without them, Blake said, Harvard wouldn’t have been as successful.

Now, the reality that international students may not be able to compete at Harvard has galvanized former alumni like Blake.

“In today’s political landscape, a lot of people maybe bite their tongue or try not to get into it because it’s so polarized,” he said. “This is the thing that was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Now’s the time to stop biting my tongue. This is way, way over the line. You’re using basically what is a really petty fight to try and harm a lot of people.”

Caryn Davies, a two-time Olympic gold medalist rower and Harvard athletics Hall of Famer, is part of a WhatsApp thread with over 300 alumni in it. Davies said she usually doesn’t open the chat, but in the wake of Friday’s news, she did. As she scrolled through, she saw back-and-forths between so many active members of the group discussing the potential fallout of the situation.

Davies, 43, said being able to compete with or against international talent made her a better rower, student and person.

“Most college athletes don’t get the chance to compete internationally. Most people won’t be going to world championships and making friends from other countries there,” she said. “University is the place they’re going to be doing that, for the first time for many people. It just makes me sad to think that the incoming freshman class might not get that opportunity to have that kind of experience.”

(Photo: Adam Glanzman / Getty Images)