Foreign Student Ban will Kill Film Schools

Survival of the Great American Film School stands on the shoulders of Harvard

The Trump Administration’s newly forming ban on international students, especially those from China, will have the effect of killing the great American film school. Last week I warned that Trump will Destroy Film Schools because of their reliance on international students who constitute 30-50% of some of the top film school programs in America. While it’s hard to get exact data, the vast majority of those are from mainland China, the exact students that Trump is targeting this week. Film schools as we’ve come to know them in the last two decades will change considerably, and many schools and programs within those schools will undoubtedly shrink or shutter.

According to Politico, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is already pausing US embassies from scheduling interviews for new student visa applications. While they still seem to be starting with Harvard applicants first, it’s clear that they plan to make these restrictions apply to all incoming international students. Rubio’s cable to embassies says the Harvard process “will also serve as a pilot for expanded screening and vetting of visa applicants” at other schools.

Rubio’s State Department is looking closely at students’ social media presence, but in a policy only Kafka could appreciate, also is wary if students don’t have a social media presence at all.

They’re already focussing their wrath on Chinese students in particular. In a different statement this week, Rubio said, “Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.” He adds, “We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”

For now, Harvard is winning in court. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that allows Harvard to keep its international students. As long as Harvard keeps succeeding, there’s a good chance the Trump Administration won’t be able to freeze out international students at other schools, either.

But should the top film schools across the country really rely on the pointy-headed lawyers at Harvard to save them? It could still be months before the Supreme Court takes up the case, and even then, its decisions are often so limited that they might not preclude Trump and Rubio from banning Chinese and other international students from attending other institutions.

To be fair, Harvard isn’t particularly that interested in “film school” per se. As an institution, it never ranks among the top 100 film schools in America, and nor does it try to be. Its own Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies “is committed to an integrated study of artistic practice, visual culture, and the critical study of the image” with an emphasis “to develop both formal skills and a sophisticated understanding of the roles played by technical ability and individual invention in the creation of art.” In other words, it’s mostly an academically-focussed critical theory program. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s vastly different from the practical film schools like USC, NYU and AFI which focus more on the craft, art and business of filmmaking, not filmlearnin’.

In other words, don’t expect the Harvard legal eagles to save the modern American film school. If film schools don’t rally together, they will tumble.