Harvard University leaders failed to implement an action plan from the school’s own task force aimed at combatting antisemitism on campus, according to a new report by a House education committee whose chairwoman said the task force was apparently “all for show.”
The House Education and Workforce Committee released the report on Thursday with updates on its investigation into Ivy League school’s handling of antisemitism on its Cambridge campus.
“The Committee’s report proves that former President Gay and Harvard’s leadership propped up the university’s Antisemitism Advisory Group all for show,” chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) said in a statement. “Not only did AAG find that antisemitism was a major issue on campus, it offered several recommendations on how to combat the problem — none of which were ever implemented with any real vigor. This shocking revelation reveals an inner look at how dysfunctional Harvard’s administration is and the deep-seated moral rot that clouds its judgement.”
Former Harvard president Claudine Gay — who resigned after her widely-criticized December appearance in front of the House committee and subsequent plagiarism scandal — announced the formation of an antisemitism task force in late October. That committee presented Gay and the rest of Harvard’s leadership with an action plan its members believed could help stem the tide of antisemitism on campus.
The recommendations included steps like instituting a “zero tolerance” policy toward disruptions in class, ensuring that the university follow its own policies when activist organizations violate them, addressing curricula with antisemitic content, and investigating the presence of financial contributions from terror-promoting states like Iran and Qatar.
However, the report states, the only interaction the antisemitism committee had with the Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing body, was senior fellow Penny Pritzker’s attendance at one meeting in November. Dara Horn, an author and member of the task force, told House committee investigators that, to the best of her knowledge, there were no other points of contact between the antisemitism task force and Harvard leadership at.
One section of the report details a complaint a Harvard undergrad made to Gay and Harvard College dean Rakesh Khurana. The student wrote that “Harvard college students and affiliates are openly calling to bring the ‘Intifada’ — a violent uprising against Israeli civilians — to Cambridge, openly threatening Harvard Hillel, openly suggesting that people ‘gas all the Jews’ and ‘let em cook’ (this post had 25 net upvotes), openly saying ‘gotta get em all,’ ‘get got or leave,’ and ‘violence is the only answer’ all in reference to the murder of Jewish civilians.”
The student told Gay and Khurana that the issue was not speech alone, writing that it had been “turned into action by Harvard affiliates.”
“I have been followed in the streets, as has at least one other Jewish student. A kippah-wearing friend was spit on by another student. Every incident I’ve cited has been reported to the college, and all relevant ones have also been reported to HUPD. The social media posts have been reported to the sites where they’re posted. These incidents and more are also being reported to the resident deans, chaplains, CAMHS, and every other pathway the university provides,” the student wrote. “I appreciate the HUPD presence outside of Hillel and the mental health check-ins from my resident dean, but I do not understand what steps the university is taking to prevent these students who want to kill us from taking action. These threats are coming from other Harvard college students — requiring Harvard IDs to get into the yard or Shabbat 1000 will not help.”
While Khurana referred the email to Harvard’s associate dean for inclusion and belonging, the report states, “Harvard’s attorneys have to date been unable to identify any disciplinary actions the University took in response to these incidents.”
Horn, in a transcribed interview with the House committee, also mentioned the presence of professor Derek Penslar on a different task force established by interim president Alan Garber.
Horn said it “disturbed” her that the university had appointed “someone who had publicly stated that antisemitism on campus was an exaggerated problem.” She said that she thought it was “an odd choice for someone to lead a task force on this topic who was going into it with his only public statement about this issue being that he felt it was exaggerated.”
Ultimately, the authors of the report argued that Harvard’s appearance of indifference toward antisemitism paved the road toward its recent agreement with anti-Israel encampment organizers.
The university announced on Tuesday that it will begin reinstating student protesters who had been “placed on involuntary leaves of absence,” will meet with students about the school’s endowment, and will discuss Middle East studies curricula with undergraduates.