Director of the Department of Homeland Security Tom Ridge ’67 speaks at the Harvard Business School on February 11, 2004.

Late last month, University President Lawrence H. Summers sent two letters to Washington. One was addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, the other to Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tom Ridge ’67. The documents detailed problems that have surfaced at Harvard and across higher education since Sept. 11, 2001.

Harvard’s international enrollment figures are down, Summers wrote. Echoing other leaders of higher education, he suggested that the decline resulted from regulations and restrictions on travel established in the wake of Sept. 11.

“I think it’s a very serious problem for our students, for the University, and ultimately for the United States, because recruiting the best foreign students here is very important for our prosperity,” Summers wrote. “And it is very important in promoting international understanding of the United States and by the United States, when that is in shorter supply than it has been for a very long time.”

Summers’ letters to Powell and Ridge add to a growing debate about the necessity and side effects of the Patriot Act and other post-Sept. 11 legislation, a debate that has been going on for the past two years.

While some contend that this legislation is unalterable and entirely necessary, others claim that it is excessively constrictive and even self-defeating.

One thing is clear: At Harvard and across academia, legislation enacted after Sept. 11 have had a major impact on Harvard, affecting primarily the University’s international population and its scientists. Stories to follow will examine the effects of this legislation on these two facets of University life.

At the same time, some fears about the legislation—particularly faculty concern that government agents would make use of a Patriot Act provision allowing them to look into library records without a warrant—have, thus far, not come to fruition, according to University officials.

For the University’s international community, post-Sept. 11 legislation has impelled many of the world’s top scholars to seek education elsewhere. New regulations have introduced new steps into the processes allowing foreign students and scholars to study in the United States. In some cases, the new systems have produced new backlogs—sometimes making a successful arrival in Cambridge an unexpected hurdle after the race for admission.

For scientists, a change in governmental priorities in the name of national security has been a mixed blessing. Fears of bioterrorism have at once brought a tremendous influx of funding and support to Harvard and its peers. At the same time, though, it has imposed new restrictions, which critics like Bloom say compromise the spirit of open exchange on which science is predicated.

While some higher education advocates have suggested exempting universities from some of the Patriot Act’s more extreme demands in order to eliminate delays, those close to the new legislation do not seem to support the possibility for exceptions to the legislation’s scrutiny.

“I think any restriction would not only be impractical, it would be counter-productive,” says former Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh, who was primarily responsible for assembling the Act in its final form.

According to those who have tracked concerns most closely over the course of the past year on behalf of the University, a mutually satisfying solution is neither easy nor imminent.

American higher education, it seems, will likely be living with the new regulations for some time.

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

Since Sept. 11, foreign students subject to new scrutiny have found it increasingly harder to acquire the paperwork to be admitted to the U.S. in time for the start of the classes.