The clear result will be a brain drain from American universities, which will also harm American industry and culture.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Social and Behavioral Sciences building on the University of Utah campus, Tuesday, Feb. 4. 2025.
Utah just got a little bit dumber.
And we don’t even know why.
As of the most recent reporting, the U.S. State Department has revoked the student visas of some 300 people who had been welcomed to American colleges and universities to study. A disproportionately large number of those students, at least 39, were attending, or recently had graduated from, universities in Utah.
University leaders across the nation are already cowed by the administration’s actions and threats to withhold grants, cancel research contracts and punish institutions that have not toed the line on such issues as suppressing protests or ending diversity programs.
At least in public, Utah’s institutions of higher learning have done little or nothing to oppose this horrible trend. Their only support for targeted students apparently has been to offer some soft words of solace. And counseling.
It’s not that the sweep of international students has emptied any of our campuses. Utah universities, public and private, count some 9,000 students here on student visas.
But one student wrongly expelled from their school, our state and our nation is an outrage. University and state leaders should be making it clear to the federal government that this behavior, especially with no reasons or explanations given, is unacceptable.
As long as no one knows why these students have had their lawful visas revoked, all other international students will be living in fear that they could be next. Many will leave even if they haven’t been ordered out.
Other students from around the globe, many the absolute cream of the world’s scientists, engineers and scholars, will choose not to come to the United States to study.
Universities in Europe are already offering enrollment opportunities or research posts to students and professors who no longer feel welcome in the U.S. They are calling it “scientific asylum.”
Next we are likely to see opportunities for American students to study in Europe and Asia curtailed.
The clear result will be a brain drain from American universities, which will also harm American industry and culture, for no good end that anyone can explain. It will be an irrational end to a long tradition of the world’s best minds coming to America because it is where they can do their best work, benefitting us and the rest of humanity.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is making no secret of his plan to expel many people who were here on legal student visas. But he has made no effort to explain how the individuals were chosen and what they are supposed to have done to deserve being deported.
There are implications that those targeted had committed some crime, or that they were somehow linked to some kind of terrorist organization. But minor crimes such as speeding have not traditionally been grounds for visas being cancelled. And taking a public stand on a controversial issue, such as the war in Gaza, is a human right that no student waives when visiting our nation.
Utah’s academic leaders and elected officials must demand an explanation as to why each student with a cancelled visa was selected and what specific criteria will be used for such actions going forward.
If such an explanation is not immediately forthcoming, then the practice must end.
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.