Belgium’s future queen caught up in Harvard foreign student ban
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.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/23/belgium-future-queen-caught-up-harvard-foreign-student-banOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
I'm sure this will work wonders for American soft power on the world stage.
Having a literal fucking queen with fond memories of America from her youth is political influence that money cannot buy. What an idiotic fumble.
What soft power? We pissed that all away months ago.
Fuck! I'm living in the past.
every day that passes it gets harder and harder to just say “lol sorry” and the world to have the memory of a goldfish and just reply “ahhhh water under the bridge” as soon as a suitcase of money is waved under our collective noses
Yeah... electing Trump a second time kind of ruined that
first time you can almost forgive as an accident… second time means it wasn’t an accident and the society is built around that being viable: you never know when it’ll happen again, and that’s not a viable strategy for long-term investment of either capital or influence
BUT… governments and businesses have a short memory and bad risk evaluation where money is concerned
Not to mention a lot of states voted for the bastard 3 times.
Belgian chiming in, people here really have* developed a strong distaste for the US. I'd say 90% of people I know don't care at all for the monarchy, but this is blasted in the news as an example no one is safe from USA's shenanigans.
Professors and Universities are condemning this, it's such a major step in the wrong direction once again.
And rightly and deservedly so...
🤷♂️ 🙄 🖕
Yeah, we hate us too, friend
I personally know two people who've cancelled US trips, one of which is because she's gay.
Really wondering when they'll realise just how fucked they are.
When you say they, do you mean Americans paying attention, Trump voters and supporters, or the assholes making these decisions?
The first group are painfully aware of how fucked we are, the second MIGHT when they lose their home/job or have a loved one hauled away to a concentration camp but even then they might never because pro American propaganda has burrowed itself so deeply into their minds they truly believe the exceptionalism horseshit, the third either knows and is fine with it because they are just trying to consolidate power or is one of the ignorant true believers like the second group.
I fucking hate my country
Mostly the people making the decisions, but don't feel too bad, the EU is rapidly shifting to the right as well. The main positive takeaway is I've never seen the EU this unified.
Really hope y'all are able to right that specific ship, we’re gonna need help but I also just wouldn’t wish this on anyone
That's soft power for the country, he doesn't care what happens to the country
Also the effects aren’t immediate so he doesn’t understand nor care about them
Pish dude wouldn't remember anyway if it did.
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.
It's the toxic cesspool of the anonymous internet. All these communities are the same.
Its just "The Greater Internet Dickhead Theory", if there are no consequences for what you say, dickheads will say anything they can get away with.
But lemmy is in no way anonymous.
Really? Who am I?
poopkins Duh!
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.
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.
If the Trump admin wasn't obviously a fascist dictatorship I might be able to feel good about Belgian royalty being treated the same as anyone else. However, this has nothing to do with traditional American values of an even playing field, because the Trump admin just refuses to recognize any royalty except Trump.
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
Trump doesn't care about anyone but himself. This is because Harvard is refusing to bend the knee.
Narcissists are likely to treat offspring as a personal extension into the future.
I’ve looked into it, there really is not any indication Barron ever applied to Harvard, he is going to the same business school as his brothers and father, the likelyhood he applied anywhere else is low. The attack on Harvard can be recontextualized as a big liberal name in a big liberal state going against what he wants.
It's retaliation for this: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/harvard-trump-funding-antisemitism-columbia-b2733306.html So Harvard isn't the only target, but they're the ones that dared to publicly stand up against the bully and now the bully wants to make an example out of them. It's basically a repeat of Ron Desantis war on higher education, but now on a national scale.
Here's an overview of how other universities are faring: https://www.yahoo.com/news/tracking-trumps-war-on-elite-universities-which-schools-have-lost-funding-and-what-theyre-doing-about-it-200621655.html?guccounter=1
Of all the people suffering from Trump's deranged actions, European royalty are probably not the most deserving of pity.
I think you're missing the point. It's not about pitying her, but bringing more attention to the utterly stupid things happening
And I think you're missing my point. To the Crown Princess, this is a mild inconvenience and will probably eventually turn in to an interesting anecdote. She can slide right into any other Ivy League university if she wants to, or she can head home to a local university without worrying about applications, grants or anything else of that boring stuff. To many other students, this might wreak havoc on their academic careers and their economies. That is some of the utterly stupid stuff that should be brought to attention. Tell me their stories.
Admittedly, I'm a European republican, i.e. in the non-US sense of the word, but still. This article reads more like a gossip piece than international news.
I did not miss your point, I agree completely and couldn't care less about this princess. The point of articles like this is to get more general public eyes on these issues. The point of this is to get some racist white Americans to maybe actually pay attention.
This is literally only for some old pearl clutching lifelong Democrat voters. "Oh no not the poor queen" is not something anyone that voted for Trump would say. Ironically, it's gonna be one thing progressives are gonna have in common with Trump voters. We both don't give a fuck about this queen. Trumps entire base is built on fake working class outrage.
This article and story does nothing to change any minds.
@[email protected] is probably shedding tears for the poor princess
I'm shedding tears that there's state sponsored monarchy that still have their heads attached to their bodies
I shed tears every time I see a meme on c/shera that isn't Glimmer's head in a guillotine.
I'm shedding tears for all the people who are working hard on their education who lose so much because of the tantrum of a manchild.
The princess isn't losing shit.
something i've learned by observing people who like the swedish royal family is that they all really like them. there are no casual royalists. the fact that this happens to a royal introduces this issue to an entire group of voters whose entire news intake consists solely of "what did the royal family do today".
personally i would fully support converting my country to a republic if we hadn't designed our entire legal system to make the head of state completely useless. instating a president would put a politician in charge of the country, instead of the way it is now where the king basically doesn't know what goes on in the riksdag and has no say in what happens there. so nobody can even begin to aspire to lead the country, which i like.
the exorbitant amounts of money the royals get from the state is a bit of an issue, but i do kind of like the novelty. one of my favourite dedications of a book is from Fairy Tales for Children Over 18, which is dedicated to "Mr. The King, whose mere existence proves that we live in fairyland"
Dude the ven diagram of the people that voted for Trump and also care a lot about royals is like 8 people.
To me this news seems more targeted towards european audiences, which couldn't vote for Trump anyways. Normally you'd expect someone like her to be the last one affected by something like this, if at all. So this drives home the point that it can literally happen to anyone, not just certain groups.
Well yeah, but the venn diagram of royalist stans and (hopefully former if this gets in their newsfeed) non-voters is probably a lot higher.
Belgian here, one who still has some sympathy for the royals, but that is not the point. I sincerely hope no special provisions are made for her and she makes a bit of a stink about having to go off to a non US university. Europe should be cutting as many ties with the US right now as it can. The princess being there at all really doesn't give a good message.
Plenty of people are telling those stories, so the question really is how come you're reading this one instead of those.
Because newspapers like the Guardian don't publish them when there are princesses available and Lemmings upvote articles about the royals like this is going to be a major turning point rather than the exact point Trump would love to spread far and wide.
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
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.
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.
Why does he have the power to ban people from going to a private university?
Because the executive branch has power over student visas.
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
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!
It does raise the question of why her royal highness could not deign to attend a Belgian university in the first place lol
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:
- wikipedia
Really seems like the worst candidate to make this accuse against
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.)
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.
Because the rich go to university primarily to network.
correct answer
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.
If I were studying in the Untied States, I'd be afraid to stay there anyway
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.
There's a near zero amount of working class kids studying abroad at Harvard
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".
You understand this policy as of now is only targeting Harvard. The article is about Harvard, don't pre-cope imo
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
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.
/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.
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.
But hey, at least db0 have their idiot right here
Even a stopped clock etc
I'm just glad we are keeping these thugs and criminals out of Harvard, it was clearly a huge problem.
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.
Hey, don't put any random rich-ish person from Europe into the same US billionaire basket
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"
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..
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.
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
It was most likely money that bought that power.
Either not white enough for trump or hasn't payed the orange shitnozzle enough homage.
Coin toss but odds are on not enough $$
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.
Lol nope. Have you ever met a trump supporter who didn't have resentment towards higher education? I sure haven't.
Luckily I live far away from them, so I haven't met any. But yeah maybe I'm still too optimistic because of it.
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
Why would your heart be so dark as to wiah bad on someone just because of who their parents are? That's not okay.
they could stop being a royal though
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.
Oh no! So anyway…
The king of America poses a minor threat to the princess of Belgium.
Does any of this make me get paid what im worth and left the fuck alone?
Tune in at 6pm PST for "Why do I give a shit?"
Sure has a lot of downvotes, I'm sorry but is there a nuanced view I can hear about that makes me forget that the only war is a class war and both of these motherfuckers are against me and anyone else that is reading this?
There's a lot of libs that run off of identity politics here and are completely delusional in thinking that this somehow will connect with Trump voters since she's white.
What lack of material analysis does to a mother fucker.
I guess something good came out of a really really shitty thing then.
Future queen I guess means she is a princess. Just say that. I did not know Belgium still has vestiges of monarchy. That does put a damper on the judgment from Europe over the U.S. having Trump. Also can't forget Leopold. Fuck that guy
"Future queen" is more specific than "princess."
They call her Princess Elisabeth repeatedly in the article, but she's not just "a princess."
Her siblings are also a princess and two princes, but she's the eldest, and thus the only one that can currently be called "future queen."
Well, then it's crown princess
Yes but it's all very dumb and made up, and I think they should just call her princess because I'm doubling down on a pointless opinion about pointless subject
a future queen has far more future influence than a forever princess
Hey. If you kill enough people in your family any princess can be a "future queen". You gotta think positive.
I can respect that
Belgium's monarchy is mostly ceremonial. Most of the power lies with parliament.
I get that. I still think it's ridiculous. Not that echewing monarchy has done so well in the u.s. either.
Its a non-issue and not worth worrying about.
A non-issue? Nepotism burning through €43 million a year is a non-issue?
Are you Belgian? And if so, is it your personal money?
I am, and I recognise their value, but it's not worth 43 million.
So?
Would that I could control what I worry about including the governments of faraway lands. Also did I mention monarchies are very silly? I will still laugh at them as I weep at the tragedies here a at home
Your argument wasn't that they are silly, useless or ridiculous. This was your argument:
You're implying it is hypocrite. But it isn't. European monarchies have close to no power over their parliaments. So your point is invalid because a monarchy would change almost nothing in how a European country is governed and how that ties with judgement towards Trump.
No, it wasn't a direct comparison of government systems. I'm not here for the political theory. Perhaps I should have checked in with you personally before I shitposted about the silliness of monarchies.
Ah yes the good ol' "i was trolling all along" argument
Okay? So where are you telling the top commenter that having soft power with a ceremonial monarchy is pointless?
Why is everyone getting up and arms like it matters if they have no actual power?
I don't understand what you're trying to say.
I guess you’re one of those doesn’t read the article types.
No I did, doesn't change anything except exaggerate my dismay. Trump and the ivy leagues and the princesses can all just go away
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.
Come on. Aren't we better than this? Your other points are correct but get out of here with this horseshoe bullshit
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.
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
It is plainly obvious you never entered a Warsaw Pact country.
Just to put it in a way you might understand, your logic means you believe North Korea is a democracy.
It is plainly obvious that you have never read a dictionary or theory
I understand the theory, but you never experienced the reality.
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.
We finally found an immigrant that deserves to be sent to a prison in El Salvador. Other than Musk, that is.
Apparently, you know something about our crown princess we don't know yet. Or are you just insulting a random person you don't know anything about?
Sure, fuck royalty, etc. But is really royalty the ones who are setting and getting the taxes in Belgium (genuine question) and if yes, is really the to-be queen the one who did it (rethorical question, i'd be surprised if that was the cas)?
Okay, both points make sense to me!