‘I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community,’ says university president Garber
Harvard University, in the midst of its funding fight with the Trump administration, released its long-awaited anti-Semitism report on Tuesday. It provides a scathing account of life at the Ivy League institution in the wake of Oct. 7, finding that “politicized instruction” in four Harvard schools “mainstreamed and normalized what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism.”
The report raises particular concerns with the Graduate School of Education, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Divinity School, and Medical School, four schools that the Trump administration also targeted for “egregious records of antisemitism or other bias.” At those schools, Jewish and Israeli students were routinely ostracized and subject to instruction “that effectively made a specific view on the Israel-Hamas conflict a litmus test for full classroom participation,” according to the report.
In one example, a “Pyramid of White Supremacy” graphic disseminated to students in a required School of Education course stated that those who oppose the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement are engaged in “coded genocide.” That portion of the pyramid was just one step removed from “overt genocide,” which included the KKK, “lynching,” “burning crosses,” and “bombing black churches.” When a Jewish student expressed concerns, the instructor did not remove the graphic from course materials and instead “referenced the ‘land acknowledgement’ made earlier in class.”
The report details similar incidents at the School of Public Health, where Jewish students raised concerns over anti-Israel webinars only to be asked, “Who is more marginalized, Jews or Palestinians?” At the Divinity School, Jewish students were subject to “the embrace of a pedagogy of ‘de-zionization'” in which instructors “attribute to Jews two great sins: first, in the Levant, the establishment of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba; and second, in the United States, participation in White supremacy.”
The report comes at a difficult time for Harvard, with the university engaged in a high-profile fight with the Trump administration over its federal funding.
Indeed, Harvard reportedly intended to publish the report in early April but delayed the release as the Trump administration outlined the policy changes necessary for the university to maintain its funding relationship with the federal government. When Harvard president Alan Garber rejected those changes, he referenced the report, pledging to eradicate campus anti-Semitism by adopting its recommendations.
Though the report is aligned with the Trump administration in its diagnosis of pervasive campus anti-Semitism—and in its singling out of the schools most responsible for driving Jew hatred—its recommended policy changes are a far cry from the administration’s demands. The report calls for an internal “set of rules and expectations” governing class instruction; the administration demands an external audit of “programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment.” The report recommends a “regular review” of protest policies; the administration demands the expulsion of specific students and the derecognition of specific student groups.
The Department of Education has not yet responded to the report. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), however, made clear she is not satisfied.
“Harvard’s own task force reveals longtime, deep-rooted, dangerous, and rampant antisemitism embedded in coursework, campus life, and faculty hiring,” she said in a statement. “There must be accountability and real reform to save American higher education—not just reports.”
Beyond its chapter on the education, public health, and divinity schools, the report outlines startling conduct within the medical school, where students actively worked to “discourage Zionist students from coming here.” At the Spring 2024 Admitted Students Preview Day, an event at which newly admitted students visit campus, enrolled students wore keffiyehs, put on “Palestinian-themed presentations,” engaged in chants of “Free Palestine,” and informed attendees that “Zionists are not welcome at HMS,” according to the report.
The report also includes anecdotes from students who were discriminated against for being Jewish or Israeli. In one case, a Jewish student planned to deliver a short speech at a Harvard conference describing “how their grandfather survived the Holocaust by migrating to the then-British Mandate of Palestine,” now Israel. The conference’s directors objected, saying the speech was not “tasteful” and was “inherently one-sided because it does not acknowledge the displacements of Palestinian populations.” In another example, Jewish students said they were “routinely asked to clarify that they were ‘one of the good ones’ by denouncing the State of Israel and renouncing any attachment to it.”
The report’s release corresponded with a message from Garber, who said he was “sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community.” He also said the deans of each Harvard school would present “by the end of this term action plans” to implement the report’s recommendations.
