Forget micro-aggressions. In the wake of 10/7, Harvard University’s multiple schools have subjected Jews and Israelis to ongoing macro-aggressions.
The festering hostility is clear, even amidst significant “context” in the university’s 311-page antisemitism report. In between helpfully presenting university-wide statistics and first-person anecdotes, the authors underplay the university’s self-sabotage.
The framing is decidedly left-wing and Harvard protective. Anti-Israel students are “pro-Palestinian.” Their encampment is called “generally . . . clean and orderly.” Authors adopt no official antisemitism definition and embrace being paired with an Islamophobia task force. They detail problems at only four of Harvard’s 12 graduate and professional schools, concentrating “on patterns of experiences” and possibly omitting individual horror stories.
Backstory matters here. This report wouldn’t exist if Harvard had summarily implemented the private recommendations of President Claudine Gay’s respected Antisemitism Advisory Group. President Alan Garber hand-picked the Antisemitism Task Force’s co-chair, whom former President Larry Summers tweeted "has publicly minimised Harvard’s anti-Semitism problem, rejected the [IHRA] definition . . . of anti-Semitism . . . invoked the need for the concept of settler colonialism in analysing Israel, referred to Israel as an apartheid state and more.” And this is a public relations document. It opens by insisting on internally-driven reform and closes without recommending Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion’s elimination.
Among 477 Jewish respondents to a university-wide survey, “Thirty nine per cent did not feel at home at the University, at least to some extent, while 26 per cent felt physically unsafe and 44 per cent felt mentally unsafe. Nearly half (49 per cent) felt their well-being was not supported at Harvard . . . Almost 60 per cent of Jewish students indicated they had experienced some form of ‘discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias on campus due to [their] views on current events,’ and “Seventy five per cent perceived an “‘academic or professional penalty” at Harvard for expressing their views.”
Some Jews have responded by hiding. One undergraduate commented, “I feel lucky I don’t look Jewish. I know if I do the ‘wrong thing’ I might get the antisemitism. So, put your headphones in, make sure you’re not outwardly Jewish, and just walk to class.”
Another undergraduate shared, “A Jew who doesn’t renounce Zionism and who is gay can’t feel comfortable in a gay students’ association.” A graduate student said, “classmates do not respect my ethnicity at all . . . they only want to tell some of us that we deserve to die.” Another graduate student described “many students” posting “social media images like ‘Decolonisation is not a metaphor’ (with Jewish blood dripping from the text).” And anti-Zionists used the medical school’s Admitted Students Week to repel prospective Zionist students.
Harvard employees contribute to these problems. A public health school administrator chastised a Jewish student for removing “‘Elders of Zion’” type “social media posts from a student group account.” The education school taught that the Anti-Defamation League and opposing the BDS movement are “coded genocide.” A divinity school class on “Religion . . . in Israel/Palestine” excluded Israeli sources, “‘because power disparities, methodology, and conscience demand it.’” A Harvard-wide anti-Israel staff and faculty Instagram account shared an antisemitic cartoon. Finally, administrators across schools have ignored, downplayed, and not enforced conduct code violations targeting Jews or Israelis.
A Jewish professor found it “chilling” he was “surveilled, identified by name, and profiled as a ‘Zionist’” by Harvard’s anti-Israel encampment last spring. And two days after a Harvard instructor-cum-speaker attacked “Zionist overlords” at black graduates’ celebration, the 2024 commencement speaker attacked Jewish critics as “power and money” in her speech.
Still, Israelis face worse. One undergraduate said, “Some people, upon learning that I’m Israeli, tell me they won’t talk with someone from a ‘genocidal country.’” Another undergraduate shared, “My friend has been told that others would not attend social gatherings if I was present, as they couldn’t risk the social consequences of being seen with an Israeli.”
One “Israeli American graduate student” didn’t feel “‘safe walking on campus without a Harvard police escort.’” An Israeli graduate student noted Russian and Chinese students aren’t blamed for their governments’ actions, but “Jewish people are blamed for Israeli policies.” Another graduate student related, “Friends of mine were bullied for being friends with me . . . I never even did pro-Israel things — I just existed [as an Israeli and a Jew].”
Israeli-Arabs encounter ugliness too. One undergraduate described “social discrimination by some people of Arab descent.” This student further recalled a Palestinian student interacting with Israelis until being exposed to “more radical students” at Harvard.
With this, it’s official. Harvard has been Corbynised.
