Claudine Gay may be out as Harvard president, but House Republicans have no intention of dropping their investigation into antisemitism on the famed Ivy League university’s campus.
House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx gave Harvard two weeks to produce an extensive catalog of documents, saying the panel has “grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of Harvard’s response to the antisemitism on its campus.”
“Harvard has cited its supposed commitment to free speech – in former President Gay’s words, ‘even of views that are objectionable, outrageous and offensive’ – as limiting it from taking action against antisemitism on its campus,” said the North Carolina Republican in the Tuesday letter.
“However, Harvard has demonstrated a clear double standard in how it has tolerated antisemitic harassment and intimidation, but acted to suppress and penalize expression it deemed problematic,” she said.
The nine-page letter to Harvard Interim President Alan Garber and Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker asked for reports of all antisemitic incidents and disciplinary actions since Jan. 1, 2021; data on Jewish student enrollment trends; a list of all donations from foreign sources, and documents from the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging related to “Jews and/or antisemitism.”
The committee also requested information related to the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s annual “Israel Apartheid Week” and “posts by Harvard students, faculty, staff, and other Harvard affiliates on Sidechat and other social media platforms targeting Jews, Israelis, Israel, Zionists, or Zionism.”
The committee launched an investigation into antisemitism at Harvard after its Dec. 5 hearing at which Ms. Gay and two other university presidents said that whether calling for “genocide of Jews” would violate their conduct codes would depend on the context.
Two of the presidents — Ms. Gay and University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill — have since resigned following a national backlash over their testimony.
Ms. Foxx ticked off a list of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents at Harvard since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, but said there is “evidence antisemitism has been pervasive at Harvard since well before the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack.”
Today marks a major development in the Committee’s investigation into the rampant antisemitism at colleges and universities.
— House Committee on Education & the Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) January 9, 2024
The Committee has requested Harvard to produce all documents related to its response to antisemitism by Jan. 23, 2024. https://t.co/PvwECWKnNE pic.twitter.com/JUGsGhpj9H
A November 2022 report by the AMCHA Initiative, a nonprofit that documents antisemitism on college campuses, found Harvard had the highest rate of threats based on Jewish identity of the 109 campuses they surveyed,” the letter said.
She also cited a March 2023 thesis by Harvard student Sabrina Goldfischer titled “The Death of Discourse: Antisemitism at Harvard College” that found 62.5% of students interviewed “had experienced antisemitism at Harvard or knew people who have.” In addition, 68.75% had self-censored in academic or social settings “because of their Judaism or ties to Israel.”
The committee gave Harvard a deadline of 5 p.m. EST on Jan. 23 to respond to the inquiry.
Ms. Gay, the first Black president of Harvard, stepped down Jan. 2, six months after taking the top job, over her handling of campus antisemitism and a plagiarism scandal centered on her scholarly articles. She will remain on the faculty.
She unveiled Nov. 9 a campus strategy for combating antisemitism that included forming an Antisemitism Advisory Group, but the effort failed to stem the criticism over rising anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment at Harvard, including a letter from 34 student groups blaming Israel for the Oct. 7 attack.
Ms. Gay later apologized for her testimony at the hearing, but Ms. Foxx noted that the Harvard Corporation defended her, saying in a Dec. 12 statement that “we unanimously stand in support of President Gay.”
“While Dr. Gay has since resigned, Harvard’s institutional failures regarding antisemitism extend well beyond one leader,” Ms. Foxx said in the letter.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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