A pair of scathing reports released by Harvard University laid bare how the school has devolved into an ugly activist echo chamber — where both antisemitic and Islamophobic crusading run rampant.
The inward-looking reports outline the ways in which the Ivy League school has routinely failed to live up to its mission, including stifling diversity of thought and denying historical facts to prop up activist political agendas.
Harvard President Alan Garber called the previous academic year “disappointing and painful” in a note published alongside the reports, apologizing for “moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community.”
Two university task forces made up of students and faculty authored the missives, one focused on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias and the other on anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias.
Both offered a scathing critique of the problems that have plagued Harvard’s culture for decades.
The task forces made some troubling findings as they interviewed more than 500 members of the Harvard community for the reports.
In one instance, they learned that one professor told a class that Jewish people have no historical connection to Israel.
They also found nontenured faculty with links to political advocacy groups, and identified a “laziness” about including the Israeli perspective in classroom discussions about the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
An unidentified faculty member quoted in the report admitted they have “never seen the university so polarized.”
The educator fears that the bitter divisions, if left unaddressed, could pose an “existential” threat to the school, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Among the changes the university has endeavored to implement are better defining teaching expectations to encourage intellectual openness, establishing rules governing where campus protests take place and encouraging more diversity of perspectives through its enrollment processes.
The release of the reports comes as the Ivy League locks horns with the Trump administration over its alleged failure to protect Jewish students as antisemitism has gripped the Cambridge, Massachusetts campus, particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks.
The report said “cruel and hateful posts” about Israel, Jewish people and the Holocaust have appeared on Harvard’s Sidechat social media platform, and that anti-Israel protesters on campus have chanted antisemitic slogans during demonstrations.
Anti-Israel tent encampment protests at Harvard Yard last spring featured a poster of Garber, who is Jewish, altered to include devil horns and a tail, the report said.
One student told the task force they were sent a disturbing, hate-filled email with the subject line “Burning babies alive,” the outlet writes.
In March, the Trump administration warned it was looking at $256 million in federal contracts for Harvard, as well as $8.7 billion in additional “multi-year grant commitments” over its alleged inaction.
Earlier this month, the Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism sent the university a list of demands it must meet or risk losing the funding, including a campus mask ban, scrapping DEI programs and clamping down on on-campus antisemitism.
Other demands included the adoption of “merit-based” university admissions and hiring policies and the termination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and compliance with a federal law requiring the disclosure of foreign gifts and contracts.
But school dug in its heels and refused to give in to the administration’s edicts, prompting the White House to freeze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts just hours later.
Just this week, the administration announced it has launched an investigation into allegations Harvard Law Journal engages in discriminatory hiring practices, alleging it “appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race.”
Read the full article here
