Harvard Law School
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened an investigation into antisemitism at Harvard University. The news comes after elite American colleges like Harvard have come under fire for allowing student groups to condemn Israel and openly demonstrate support for the terrorist group Hamas after its barbaric massacre of more than 1,200 innocent people in Israel on October 7.
Fox News reported that Kristi R. Harris, chief attorney for the OCR Boston office, wrote in a letter that the investigation comes after Harvard “failed to respond to alleged harassment of students based on their national origin (shared Jewish ancestry and/or Israeli) in a manner consistent with the requirements of Title VI.”
“Please note,” added the letter, “that opening the complaint for investigation in no way implies that OCR has made a determination on the merits of the complaint. During the investigation, OCR is a neutral factfinder, collecting and analyzing relevant evidence from you, the University, and other sources, as appropriate.”
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A few weeks ago Harvard President Claudine Gay released a letter on the matter saying that she affirmed Harvard’s “commitment to protecting all members of our community from harassment and marginalization, and our commitment to meeting antisemitism head-on, with the determination it demands.”
The news comes just a few weeks after Bill Ackman, the billionaire activist investor who runs Pershing Square Capital, demanded that Harvard publish the names of students who are members of the groups who support Hamas. He also said that businesses have a right to this information so that they will not offer such people jobs when they graduate.
Bill Ackman commented, “When the leaders of our most prestigious universities and their faculty fail to condemn the most heinous and barbaric terrorism, and to make matters worse they ‘contextualize’ it, this opens the door for hate speech, incitement to violence, antisemitism, and Islamophobia.”
“When students are threatened and/or violently attacked on campus and this behavior is not immediately condemned with real consequences for the bad actors, it opens the door for greater threats and more violence.”
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat, NY) gave a speech before the Senate in which he warned that antisemitism is growing in America.
“The vitriol against Israel in the wake of October 7th is all too often crossing a line into brazen and widespread antisemitism the likes of which we haven’t seen in generations in this country, if ever,” said Senator Schumer.
