Princess Elisabeth has completed first year of master’s degree but Trump administration’s crackdown may jeopardise studies

Princess Elisabeth, the 23-year-old future queen of Belgium, has just completed her first year at Harvard University but the ban imposed by Donald Trump’s administration on foreign students studying there could jeopardise her continued attendance.

The US president’s administration revoked Harvard’s ability to enrol international students on Thursday, and is forcing current foreign students to transfer to other schools or lose their legal status in the US, while also threatening to expand the crackdown to other colleges.

“Princess Elisabeth has just completed her first year. The impact of [the Trump administration’s] decision will only become clearer in the coming days/weeks. We are currently investigating the situation,” said a spokesperson for the Belgian royal palace, Lore Vandoorne.

  • Ginny [they/she]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 days ago

    I am anti-monarchy and I don’t particularly give a shit that this woman has to change universities or whatever, but quite frankly I’m shocked by the amount of comments here hoping for horrific things to happen to a woman just for being born into a family they don’t like.

    • poopkins@lemmy.world
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      It’s the toxic cesspool of the anonymous internet. All these communities are the same.

    • Clbull@lemmy.world
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      I thought the royals in mainland Europe were generally well-liked? I’m only basing this on the lack of negative attention they get compared to the British royal family.

      • Ginny [they/she]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        I’m British so I can’t really say, but I think if not more well-liked, they’re at least more low key. Britain made its royal family part of its brand, and with that comes a lot more coverage, better or worse.

  • flango@lemmy.eco.br
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    6 days ago

    Fuck off! She’s rich AF, who’s really suffering is the bright and poor immigrant that got this one chance to have a good education

    • Soleos@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      It’s less that it’s bad for her and more that it’s another way the US is dismantling their own soft power. There are long term advantages to having the rich and powerful from around the world get their upper education in your universities.

      • mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 days ago

        Yeah this isn’t newsworthy because she’s rich, tbh there’s probably richer immigrant students at Harvard we don’t know about. But diplomatically this is a pretty big deal. This lady is gonna grow up to wield substantial political influence in her country, and she likely won’t have warm feelings towards America as a result of this.

  • HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 days ago

    Someone told me this whole attack on Harvard is all because Harvard rejected Baron trump and while I haven’t looked into it that would make so much sense

  • Zenith@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Why does he have the power to ban people from going to a private university?

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    what a toxic piece of shit, he is like the most obnoxious type of kid who screams, flails arms and legs when he loses a game and gets confronted about his shitty behaviour. except he is also the president of the US

    • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      And this is who the majority of the voters and those who didn’t turn up wanted as their president. Democracy at work, ladies and germs!

  • skozzii@lemmy.ca
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    5 days ago

    I’m just glad we are keeping these thugs and criminals out of Harvard, it was clearly a huge problem.

  • etuomaala@sopuli.xyz
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    6 days ago

    It does raise the question of why her royal highness could not deign to attend a Belgian university in the first place lol

    • golli@lemm.ee
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      Considering her future job as queen will involve a lot of diplomatic and ceremonial functions it does kind of make sense to me that you’d want her to gain some international experience.

      Also on a personal level i’d imagine it is much easier to have some resemblance of a private life in a foreign country, especially at a prestigious institution where plenty of others share notable backgrounds, compared to going to a local university where everyone knows who you are. In a small country like Belgium you probably don’t even have much choices as to which university even offers a good program in your chosen field.

      Edit:

      Elisabeth initially studied at St John Berchmans College in Marollen, Brussels from September 2004 until August 2018. This marked a significant change in Belgian royal tradition, being the first time that a future Belgian monarch’s education has begun in Dutch

      In May 2020, the Belgian Royal Court announced that Elisabeth would undertake military training. On 31 August 2020, Elisabeth entered the Royal Military Academy in Brussels, studying social and military sciences

      - wikipedia

      Really seems like the worst candidate to make this accuse against

      • Kratzkopf@discuss.tchncs.de
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        Elisabeth initially studied at St John Berchmans College in Marollen, Brussels from September 2004 until August 2018.

        Something is off here. Ok, apparently the St John Berchmans College is a secondary school, but still I guess it should say 2014. Surely she didn’t start school when three yeard old.

        (Not opposing your original point, this just caught my eye.)

        • golli@lemm.ee
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          I’d imagine that “school” in that context is used more broadly and encompases stuff like kindergarten.

          A look at their website shows that they seem to also have a preschool and elementary school. It even currently says that you can enroll your kids born 2023 now “even if they don’t start in 2026”, which implies that starting 3 seems to indeed be a reasonable time to join their preschool program.

    • Breezy@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Because going to another country where she’ll learn to deal with another cultures is important and will be a huge part of her future. You raise a question when the answer should be easily understood.

  • LeninOnAPrayer@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Honestly. If a couple bourgeoisie take some strays for Trump’s awful policies I’m not gonna shed a tear. Who the fuck cares about a Belgium queen? I care about the working class kid that isn’t gonna graduate. Fuck the Queen.

    • aidan@lemmy.world
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      I care about the working class kid that isn’t gonna graduate.

      There’s a near zero amount of working class kids studying abroad at Harvard

      • LeninOnAPrayer@lemm.ee
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        Do you think this policy is only going to be unique to Harvard? Your comment is ironic because it’s upvoted by the same people disagreeing with me that don’t care about a royal. But can’t see the the the bigger picture of who this hurts.

        The entire criticism I have is that it shouldn’t take a royal for people to care and it’s absolutely silly to write an article around it. It makes the absolutely wrong point about who is harmed by this. It’s literally pro Trump. Use to trick his base into thinking the “elite” are the ones that will be hurt. They won’t. They will at most be inconvenienced.

        But you somehow miss BOTH points. Somehow not getting my point of criticism of the article AND missing the larger picture of who these xenophobic policies will hurt the most.

        It’s starts here. At the easiest place for American working class to say “yep, fuck the Queen”. And solidifies xenophobic policies into law. All while idiot liberals clutch their pearls as “the poor queen”.

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          You understand this policy as of now is only targeting Harvard. The article is about Harvard, don’t pre-cope imo

          • LeninOnAPrayer@lemm.ee
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            Yeah. Famously no other universities have been targeted. We definitely don’t have a green card holding student rotting in a cell for months at this point. With not a single charge of a crime against him.

            Yeah. I’m sure this rich queen is the only victim. And Harvard has definitely been the only school targeted /s

    • Bravo@eviltoast.org
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      This however highlights the fact that foreign students used to be a source of revenue for the USA. This is wealthy European money that was getting spent in America but now will likely be spent somewhere else.

      This is also denying American Harvard business students the opportunity to establish lucrative connections with European money. You’ve heard of “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”? Poor Harvard students on a full scholarship who plan on setting up their own business someday could have benefitted from being classmates with the future queen of Belgium.

      My point being that even if you fully subscribe to “America first”, this is still a really dumb policy that’s shooting America in the foot. Foreign students studying in America were, by definition, bringing money into America. No longer.

      • LeninOnAPrayer@lemm.ee
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        6 days ago

        Your points are speaking to a Trump voter that would never even care about those things because they would never actually apply to them. They live in a contradiction that doesn’t apply to what you’re saying.

        You literally replied with talking points that only benefit rich well off bourgeoisie. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make or who you’re trying to convince. Because this definitely doesn’t appeal to the me (looking at this from a class perspective) or the idiot Trump voter (looking at this from a “fuck the elite” perspective).

        The later of which is just, on average, an uneducated working class idiot that thinks we live in a meritocracy but blames the “elite” for their position in it. They lack class analysis to actually understand where to direct that anger. But Harvard and “Queens” are the definition of that elite to them.

        Who is this article supposed to appeal to? That’s my question. This is just garbage puff that distracts from the real problems with Trump’s policies.

        It only appeals to well off petty bourgeois Liberals that have nothing better to care about than some “royal” being effected by a policy that they are only, at best, collateral damage to.

        • Bravo@eviltoast.org
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          See, that’s bullshit because you can’t be outraged that Harvard admits foreigners but also pretend to not care about or be affected by Harvard at all.

          • LeninOnAPrayer@lemm.ee
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            2 days ago

            /woosh

            The criticism is that the media coverage here is around some slight inconvenience to a royal. Thanks for pointing to the thing the article entirely misses and using that to point to misunderstand my criticism.

    • drawb@lemmy.ml
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      I understand. But Trump seems to like being invited by royalty (at least UK royalty). Also visited her father when in Belgium during his 1st term. Probably not, but if he isn’t welcome because of this (among other things) next time, Trump could do something you do care about. He acts much more bourgeoisie than this princess (not yet queen) seems to act.

  • Genius@lemmy.zip
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    7 days ago

    Why do we care about whether a princess can study in another country? Fuck princesses, they’re nepo baby billionaires plus a “divine right” to oppress people.

    • Eximius@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Hey, don’t put any random rich-ish person from Europe into the same US billionaire basket

        • nyctre@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          You’re either overestimating the Belgium crown’s power or underestimating the power of money. Also: “Belgium’s monarchy has topped the list as Europe’s poorest royal family, with the Belgian monarch King Philippe estimated to have a fortune of about €12.4 million”

            • nyctre@lemmy.world
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              Never said she was poor, just not “more power than money can buy”.

              Also, you’re paying more in taxes than many people’s yearly gross income so maybe you’re not so poor yourself so… Yeah…

                • nyctre@lemmy.world
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                  What do you mean not really? Minimum wage in most countries is below 25k/year. If you’re playing 40k in taxes, it means you’re earning a lot more than that. Median is somewhere around 40-50k, so you’re earning more than that as well. You have no idea how privileged you are if you think you have it bad.

                • aidan@lemmy.world
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                  6 days ago

                  You’re definitely earning more than me, but I’m also a freelancer. So much of at least Czech and Polish tax code is set up to make it far more expensive to run a small business or be self employed, than to work for a company

  • KulunkelBoom@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Either not white enough for trump or hasn’t payed the orange shitnozzle enough homage.

    Coin toss but odds are on not enough $$

  • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 days ago

    On the one hand I wish anything bad that’s possible on anyone who’s royalty. On the other hand this might shine a light on Trumps bullshit in a way that even his supporters might start questioning.

    • Grimtuck@lemmy.world
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      Why would your heart be so dark as to wiah bad on someone just because of who their parents are? That’s not okay.

      • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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        She’s an adult, she has the choice. She can step away like Prince Harry for example. As long as she remains crown princess, she’s perpetuating royalty.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      even his supporters might start questioning

      Lol nope. Have you ever met a trump supporter who didn’t have resentment towards higher education? I sure haven’t.

      • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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        Luckily I live far away from them, so I haven’t met any. But yeah maybe I’m still too optimistic because of it.

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          You definitely have. Whenever people meet me they feel the need to tell me which American politicians they support for some reason. And a non-zero percent of them in essentially every country like Trump. And of Chinese people I’ve met it’s 100% for some reason lol

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    A relative of King Leopold II, the number 4 ranked mass murderer. Look up Belgian Congo and that monarchy should have been torn down.

    However, Krasnov’s revoking international students that apply to Harvard is plain stupid and very fascist/communist move.

    • lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works
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      fascist/communist

      Come on. Aren’t we better than this? Your other points are correct but get out of here with this horseshoe bullshit

      • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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        My grandmother was jailed by the Nazis and survived WW II. Post WW II, my relatives were on both sides, East Germany and West Germany. Tell me again how I know the similarities between the fascist and communist when it boils down to power and corruption. It’s not horseshoe BS.

        • lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works
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          Absolutely none of that has anything to do with the dictionary definition of communism. You can use “totalitarianism” if you can fit that into your vocabulary

            • Lumiluz@slrpnk.net
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              Just to put it in a way you might understand, your logic means you believe North Korea is a democracy.

                • lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works
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                  I don’t know how to pound this into your thick skull. You’re obviously very dull. The people who abused your family had a system of government they called “communism”. IT WAS NOT COMMUNISM. YOU HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED COMMUNISM. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT COMMUNISM IS.

  • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    We finally found an immigrant that deserves to be sent to a prison in El Salvador. Other than Musk, that is.

  • wpb@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I guess something good came out of a really really shitty thing then.