A February 2024 Instagram image reposted by Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, since deleted, showing a cartoon with antisemitic imagery that originated in the Civil Rights Era. The post is depicted over an image of the Harvard Yard gates. (Image via X; David L. Ryan\/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
And amid what the authors described as increased polarization and more aggressive campus protests than in generations past, they noted, \u201cHarvard lacks relevant courses and programming to address the campus climate and discuss events in Israel\/Palestine in a constructive, informed, and non-threatening way.\u201d<\/p>\n
One section of the report is devoted to the failures of staff and faculty at different Harvard schools to foster a welcoming environment for Jewish and Israeli students, including criticism of \u201cpoliticized instruction that mainstreamed and normalized what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urge the university and its schools to take on the mantle of moral leadership in the fight against antisemitism and anti-Israel bias,\u201d the report reads at one point. \u201cWe are deeply concerned that these forms of bigotry are becoming increasingly normalized in academia.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report also spends many pages setting up a broader historical context for the presence of Jews, antisemitism, and pro-Palestinian organizing on Harvard\u2019s campus. The authors note the experiences of Harvard\u2019s Jewish students following the end of its anti-Jewish quotas. They also document a shift over the last few decades from a brand of on-campus pro-Palestinian protest that sometimes sought to break bread with pro-Israel students, to one that focused on \u201cshunning\u201d them from public spaces and \u201cappears to view bridge-building activities as a form of betrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n
A small number of anti-Zionist Jewish students also told the task force they felt discriminated against at Jewish organizations serving the campus, including Hillel and Chabad, due to their views on Israel. <\/p>\n
The parallel Islamophobia task force\u2019s report, meanwhile, includes testimony from pro-Palestinian Jewish students. One who identifies as \u201ca Jew with an Israeli parent\u201d chastises Harvard for \u201cbend[ing] over backwards to represent the views of the Zionist members of your community at the expense of those Jews in the diaspora who oppose the colonial project.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latter report also criticizes Harvard for not doing more to protect students from doxxing, including the presence of pro-Israel \u201cdoxxing trucks\u201d that drove through campus projecting images of students the truck called \u201cHarvard\u2019s Leading Antisemites.\u201d <\/p>\n
Survey respondents for the Islamophobia report also said they felt \u201capprehension\u201d when Harvard adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance\u2019s definition of antisemitism, which includes some forms of Israel criticism, as part of a recent lawsuit settlement. Muslim and pro-Palestinian students feared the move would \u201csuppress pro-Palestinian protest by conflating criticism of Israeli policies with antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Side by side, the two reports reflect an often yawning gulf in how their respective communities viewed both the current and historic campus climate. The Islamophobia report criticized Harvard for cancelling pro-Palestinian campus events, while the antisemitism report said that, historically, the school has prioritized pro-Palestinian voices and de-emphasized pro-Israel ones when programming events around the conflict.<\/p>\n
Yet they also attempted to reach consensus, with a shared \u201cPluralism Subcommittee\u201d issuing joint recommendations to address both problems, including one to establish an \u201cinstitutional anchor for practices of pluralism on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
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