_WHAT’S HAPPENING_
Harvard University released a damning 311-page report this week confirming widespread antisemitism on campus, with 60 percent of Jewish students reporting discrimination, stereotyping, or negative bias.
The investigation found that "politicized instruction" in several Harvard schools "mainstreamed and normalized what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism," particularly in the Graduate School of Education, Public Health, Divinity, and Medical schools.
The report arrives amid Harvard's ongoing legal battle with the Trump administration, which froze billions in federal funding over the university's handling of antisemitism in the wake of the post-October 7 anti-Israel movement.
_THE FACTS_
Jewish students felt compelled to hide their identities on campus, something faculty "could not have imagined would ever be the case at Harvard."
A required School of Education course distributed a "Pyramid of White Supremacy" graphic stating that opposing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement constitutes "coded genocide."
Students who raised concerns about anti-Israel webinars at the School of Public Health faced questions like, "Who is more marginalized, Jews or Palestinians?"
Medical School students wore keffiyehs and chanted "Free Palestine" at admitted students preview events.
Medical students told prospective attendees during a campus visit that “Zionists are not welcome at HMS.”
Many Jewish students reported being "routinely asked to clarify that they were 'one of the good ones' by denouncing the State of Israel."
Jewish students on academic trips were told their “Jewish tradition had become indistinct from a settler-colonial project,” and some were blamed for "atrocities" committed by Israel.
Officials blocked a Jewish student from delivering a speech about their grandfather surviving the Holocaust because it was deemed "not tasteful" and "inherently one-sided."
Over 25 percent of Jewish students reported feeling "physically unsafe" on campus.
Harvard President Alan Garber stated, “I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community.”
_INSIGHTS_
As many had expected, the campus turmoil in the aftermath of October 7 ran much deeper than just encampments and marches. The Harvard report documents a pattern of institutional antisemitism that extends well beyond isolated incidents: academic departments and faculty created environments where Jewish students were pressured to disavow Israel to participate fully in campus life.
