Harvard’s Antisemitism Has Become Even More Insidious
What does it take to get Harvard to cancel longstanding first-year orientation DEI trainings on race, LGBTQ, and other topics? Apparently, Harvard’s leaders quietly eliminated modules that have been mandatory for years rather than add training on antisemitism to the mix. This resistance is only the latest in a year filled with embarrassing lack of moral clarity.
Last fall, Harvard’s leaders blundered one of the easiest moral judgment calls in the last century. Witnessing the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, complete with gleeful GoPro footage of rape and beheadings, Harvard’s president, provost, corporation and deans missed the opportunity to condemn these monstrous acts.
Recently released emails revealed that top university officials acknowledged that the ugly slogans and acts on their campus were antisemitic, but didn’t want to say so publicly lest they then be required to discipline the perpetrators – a stark contrast from past behavior protecting other groups from jokes and microaggressions. When virulent Jew hatred consumed their public spaces, they asked us to believe their cowardly inaction was somehow aligned with higher principles of academia, such as free inquiry and speech. We know they know better.
For the past year they piled one spineless judgment call on top of another, doubling down on their feckless behavior by failing to address obvious bullying, harassment, and antisemitism that consumed campus spaces and continues to this day. Recent “free speech” activists stood on the steps of Harvard Hillel screaming “Zionists are not welcome here” and others plastered Israeli flags with swastikas replacing the star of David nearby.
When Harvard faculty deliberately violated university rules and defaced the John Harvard statue with the red triangles used by terrorists to identify targets, the administration looked away. In classrooms, “academic freedom” allows blatant hateful lies about non-existent genocide and apartheid to indoctrinate and corrupt a new generation. A partnership with Bir Zeit University continues despite their explicit institutional glorification of terrorism and exclusion of Jews.
Harvard’s few actions taken to restore a veneer of morality look more like a cover-up. Afraid of backlash from those who deliberately violate codes of conduct and federal law, university leaders occasionally suspended a few of the worst perpetrators, then quietly reversed the discipline, or temporarily kicked terror-advocacy groups off campus before allowing them back to continue receiving funding to make a mockery of truth and morality. They formed committees to research antisemitism on campus, as if they needed deep study to acknowledge the obvious.
Members of Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combatting Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias task force have privately acknowledged that their long-awaited report won’t have any implementation plan. Of course not. Harvard even adopted “neutrality” codes, which didn’t change the anti-Jewish discourse but did give yet another reason why top leadership won’t stand up for their Jewish students, yet again letting cowardice masquerade as principle.
Whom do they think they are fooling? In September, Harvard’s Jewish groups united to convene over 1,000 people at Harvard’s iconic Sanders Theatre, aiming to restore the university’s commitment to “Veritas.”
Students, world leaders, and witnesses to the atrocities revealed the truth and received standing ovations. The university managed to keep protestors away with a security force worthy of a presidential inauguration, suggesting they can protect their Jews when ambassadors and world-renowned speakers are in town.
Harvard President Alan Garber was repeatedly asked to attend this historic event, but declined, citing travel plans. Was standing with his own Jewish community not a priority? Days later he spoke at an assembly of black alumni in the exact same space. They gave their highest award “For Leadership and Courage” to Claudine Gay, Harvard’s former president due partly to her infamous congressional testimony. Apparently President Garber’s attendance depends on the context.
Harvard’s gutless governors have put the great institution they steward at risk. They have been hit with lawsuits, congressional investigations, donor flight, fewer applicants, and reputation damage that may never be repaired – just ask the great European universities who never recovered from their Nazi era.
And now, they face the newly elected Trump administration threatening to pull accreditation, empty their endowment, and defund their entire enterprise. Alumni group StandColumbia calculated that their alma mater stands to lose up to 55% of its budget, or $3.5 billion annually. Harvard should expect similar losses. But university “leaders” aren’t risking their own money, after all. Even when fired from her post as Harvard’s President, Claudine Gay kept her salary and her professorship. A lack of personal responsibility rarely yields optimal results.
There is a way out. Change is in the air, and Harvard’s leadership cadre can change as well. It’s high time to admit their errors and start acting like the leaders they were chosen to be. Stand up for your Jews, loudly and publicly. Tell the truth. Enforce the rules. Kick the hateful groups off campus – permanently. Expel the ring leaders. Adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. Require academic rigor in teaching and scholarship. Eliminate the courses that train hatred and brainwash students against core values of our civilization. Add courses that teach these eternal truths.
These solutions are not only easy to implement, they come at relatively no cost. All it requires is leadership that has the backbone to stand up for their values. Those who do will be remembered for the courage to make things right rather than the hatred and shame of the last year.