Harvard commencement speaker decries Trump administration’s ‘draconian government measures’

The Ivy League university has come under fire from the White House for its lack of viewpoint diversity and incidents of antisemitism

White House Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller weighs in on a judge halting President Donald Trump’s Harvard visa block as commencement speakers make digs at the president on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’

Stanford professor Abraham Verghese spoke out against the Trump administration’s “cascade of draconian government measures” at Harvard Thursday as the White House continues to battle the elite university.

The physician and novelist was Harvard’s 2025 commencement speaker, where he also received an honorary degree from the university.

During his address, Verghese acknowledged that he was speaking at an “unprecedented moment” in the school’s history amid President Donald Trump’s attempts to cut the school’s federal funding and terminate its student visa program due to reports of rampant antisemitism on campus.

“A cascade of draconian government measures has already led to so much uncertainty, so much pain and suffering in this country and across the globe, and more has been threatened,” Verghese said. “The outrage you must feel, the outrage so many feel, must surely lead us to a new appreciation for the rule of law and due process, which ’til now we took for granted, because this is America.”

HARVARD GRADUATE CRITICIZES UNIVERSITY FOR FIGHTING TRUMP MORE THAN ANTISEMITISM

Abraham Verghese

Recipient of Harvard honorary degree and a commencement speaker Abraham Verghese speaks during the 374th Commencement exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 29, 2025. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

Verghese added that he agreed to be the commencement speaker to promote the value of immigrants like himself as Trump cracks down on illegal immigration.

“What made me eventually say yes to President Garber had everything to do with where we all find ourselves in 2025, when legal immigrants and others who are lawfully in this country, including so many of your international students, worry about being wrongly detained and even deported,” Verghese said. “When legal immigrants and others who are lawfully in this country worry about being wrongly detained and even deported, perhaps it’s fitting that you hear from an immigrant like me.”

“Part of what makes America great, if I may use that phrase, is that it allows an immigrant like me to blossom here, just as generations of other immigrants and their children have flourished and contributed in every walk of life, working to keep America great.”

He later related his experiences caring for HIV patients in a small town in Tennessee at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, saying the experience taught him that “love trumps all bigotry. Love trumps ideology.”

Verghese also celebrated the school pushing back against the Trump administration as an inspiration.

HARVARD PROFESSOR URGES UNIVERSITY TO EMBRACE IDEOLOGICAL BALANCE AMID CLASH WITH TRUMP ADMIN

Trump and Abraham Verghese

Stanford professor Abraham Verghese indirectly called out the Trump administration during his Harvard commencement speech. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images | REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

“More people than you realize are grateful for Harvard for the example it has set,” he said. “By your clarity in affirming and courageously defending the essential values of this university, and indeed of this nation.”

Verghese’s speech came after Harvard President Alan Garber addressed conservative viewpoints being seen as unwelcome on campus. He called it a “problem” that needs to be solved.

Fox News Digital reached out to Harvard for comment.