Jewish leaders: Harvard’s reversal of protester suspensions will lead to more antisemitism
Harvard’s decision on Tuesday to reverse the suspensions of five students for participating in the illegal anti-Israel encampments earlier this year on the Cambridge, Mass., campus was met with “disappointment” by two leaders of Harvard’s Jewish community.
“I’m disappointed in this action. I’ve heard the phrase ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ but it seems in this case that no good deed goes unreversed,” Rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Divinity School who stepped down from Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee after a short stint, told Jewish Insider. “Punishment is a lesson — reversing it is a permission.”
Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, who leads Chabad on Harvard’s campus, said the reversal was “revealing and deeply disturbing.” Zarchi added that it’s “sadly clear” the move will embolden anti-Israel demonstrators.
That may have already taken place, judging by a joint Instagram post from the Palestine Solidarity Committee, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine and the African and African American Resistance Organization. “After sustained student and faculty organizing, Harvard has caved in, showing that student intifada will always prevail,” the groups wrote on Wednesday.
The suspensions and other disciplinary charges — which included the withholding of degrees for 13 seniors because of their involvement in the encampment — were initially announced in late May ahead of graduation. Hundreds of students and faculty members walked out of Harvard’s commencement ceremony in solidarity with the punished students.
According to the Harvard Crimson, the university informed students on Tuesday of their updated disciplinary charges, which saw the suspensions downgraded to probations of varying lengths and came as a result of the Faculty Council’s criticism of how the Harvard College Administrative Board dealt with the cases.
The most severe probation charge will last for just one semester, a drastic change from the initial punishments that required at least one student to withdraw from Harvard for three semesters. Some students who were initially placed on probation in May also had the length of their probations shortened.
A Harvard spokesperson told JI that the university does not comment on individual disciplinary cases. According to the policy outlined in the Harvard College Student Handbook, students in the disciplinary process who seek to challenge the outcome have two options: “reconsideration,” which is adjudicated by the administrative board and is for new and relevant information that was not initially made available; or “appeals,” which is adjudicated by the Faculty Council.
According to the handbook, “appeals” is for situations where the Administrative Board or Honor Council made a procedural error that may impact the disciplinary decision or when the punishment was determined to be inconsistent or inappropriate compared to past sanctions.
Wolpe, along with other Harvard Jewish leaders and alumni, expressed disappointment to JI last month as well, when a six-page set of preliminary recommendations released by the university task force focused on combating antisemitism at the school fell short of their expectations.
Dept. of Education finds Michigan, CUNY didn’t adequately investigate campus antisemitism, Islamophobia
Administrators at the University of Michigan and the City of University of New York failed to adequately investigate students’ reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia, the U.S. Department of Education announced on Monday.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights, known as OCR, released the findings of its investigations into how both Michigan and CUNY handled antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents dating back to 2020, culminating in resolutions reached with both universities to end the investigations in exchange for the administrations promising to do more to take students’ complaints seriously.
The agreements were the first to resolve investigations related to discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry — including antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Israel discrimination and anti-Palestinian racism — on college campuses since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel sparked a wave of antisemitism and ushered in a slew of more than 100 new investigations into potential civil rights violations.
“There’s no question that this is a challenging moment for school communities across the country. The recent commitments made by the University of Michigan and CUNY mark a positive step forward,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights continues to hold schools accountable for compliance with civil rights standards, including by investigating allegations of discrimination or harassment based on shared Jewish ancestry and shared Palestinian or Muslim ancestry.”
Jewish community advocates praised the department for resolving the complaints. In recent months, Jewish leaders have called on Congress to increase funding for OCR, which has been unable to hire additional attorneys to handle an immense increase in its caseloads since Oct. 7. More than twice as many shared ancestry investigations have been opened since Oct. 7 than in the previous seven years combined.
“The findings are sobering, but not surprising. Both schools must take their obligations to protect students seriously,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a post on X.
Investigators found that at Michigan, there was “no evidence” that the university complied with federal civil rights requirements mandating that the school assess whether 75 incidents of shared ancestry discrimination reported from late 2022 to early 2024 created a hostile environment for students. Because the university failed to determine whether Jewish and Muslim students faced a hostile environment, investigators also raised concerns that the university did not act “to end the hostile environment, remedy its effects and prevent its recurrence.”
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon, who oversees OCR, said she was “grateful to the University of Michigan for its speedy commitment to course correct following the volatile campus conditions since October 2023.” The university pledged to review each report of discrimination from the 2023-2024 school year and to report on its progress assessing harassment over the next two years, as well as to better train employees to comply with federal civil rights guidelines.
In a statement, Michigan President Santa Ono said the university “condemns all forms of discrimination, racism and bias in the strongest possible terms.” The agreement, Ono added, “reflects the university’s commitment to ensuring it has the tools needed to determine whether an individual’s acts or speech creates a hostile environment, and taking the affirmative measures necessary to provide a safe and supportive educational environment for all.”
The resolution reached between CUNY and the Education Department combined nine open investigations alleging antisemitism and Islamophobia or anti-Arab discrimination at several CUNY campuses, including Hunter College, Brooklyn College and Queens College. The department specifically criticized the university for failing to investigate and address an alleged antisemitic incident that occurred in a 2021 class at Hunter College, and called on CUNY to reopen investigations into antisemitic or Islamophobic harassment.
“The good news is that they are finally issuing resolution agreements for universities to make changes to address discrimination against Jewish students,” Ken Marcus, chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which helps students file civil rights complaints against universities, said of the agreements. Adding a note of caution, Marcus, who headed OCR in the Trump administration, said he had hoped for “more specificity and detail” in the agreements. “Instead, the Education Department has kicked the can down the road, requiring [CUNY] to make some vaguely described changes to its policies.”
In a statement, William C. Thompson Jr., the CUNY board of trustees chairman, promised the university would work closely with the Education Department. “We look forward to working with the Office of Civil Rights to ensure that all members of our community feel safe and included in the CUNY mission of equal access and opportunity,” said Thompson.
That both agreements included mentions of both antisemitism and Islamophobia — even though the two OCR complaints against Michigan only referred to antisemitism — reflects a common Biden administration practice of linking the two forms of hatred, even when the incidents are not connected.
“We all want universities to provide equal protection for all of their students, including Jewish and non-Jewish students alike. But it’s unusual for the agency to address claims by one group by insisting that multiple groups be treated in a different way,” said Marcus. “When women come forward and say that an institution is discriminating against women, the agency doesn’t come up with an order saying that both women and men need to be treated better in the future.”
Ahead of House hearing, Jewish Rutgers students, faculty condemn handling of campus antisemitism
Ahead of testimony on Capitol Hill on Thursday by Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway, hundreds of Jewish Rutgers students, faculty, administrators and staff signed onto a pair of letters condemning the school’s handling of antisemitism on campus.
Rutgers’ administration agreed to many of the demands put forward by anti-Israel protesters on campus, but refused to divest from companies linked to Israel or cut ties with Tel Aviv University. Lawmakers, including Gov. Phil Murphy, have condemned the university’s handling of the situation.
The more than 150 students who signed the student-led letter wrote that they “would like to share our experiences of the past academic year in the hope of conveying the hurt, pain, and isolation that many of us have suffered and suggesting ways that the entire university community might do better in the future, not just to support its Jewish students, but to create a more tolerant climate for all its members.”
The students said that anti-Israel demonstrators had “in short… taken over our university,” including by forcing the delay of final exams, taking over building and blocking events.
They said they felt “abandoned” by people they considered friends in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, some of whom defended the Hamas massacre and “quickly mobilized in support of terror, conveying to us that we would not be safe and welcome at the university many of us called home.”
The students further accused “many faculty and staff” of having “guided [protesters] in tactics of intimidation and menacing protest,” helped the students negotiate with administrators and in some cases “allowed for and perpetuated antisemitic behavior in their own classrooms.”
They said that they have “no objection” to pro-Palestinian protests, but said that student groups that have actively violated others’ rights to free expression have faced no punishment, and that the university has failed to enforce its own rules.
“Our desire is nothing more than for our university to once again become a place where all peoples are welcome and treated equally, in a tolerant environment where we can all pursue knowledge in a spirit of peace and empathy for others,” the letter continued.
The second letter, signed by more than 200 faculty, staff and administrators, highlights more than a dozen incidents, including celebration of the Oct. 7 attack and the use of university resources to promote anti-Israel propaganda, some of which have gone unpunished.
“The administration’s decision to accede to the demands of the encampment protesters undermines the principles of shared governance, and it elevates the voices of a radical few above those of the more reasonable whole,” they wrote. “It does a disservice not just to Jewish students, faculty, and staff, but to the entire university community.”
They said Rutgers had failed to act proactively to respond to and make clear its rules and policies with regard to demonstrations and, “As a result, the entire university community has suffered through the disruption of normal university operations and an often chaotic and intimidating environment on our campuses.”
Dark money group backing anti-Israel campus activity faces scrutiny for its practices
The Tides Foundation, which backs several organizations involved in anti-Israel protests on college campuses and beyond, is facing scrutiny from the House Ways and Means Committee for serving as a conduit to hide the identity of donors to its grantees.
Tides’ entities – the foundation, as well as the Tides Network, Tides Center, Tides Inc. and Tides Advocacy – have a combined budget of almost $1 billion to support progressive causes, NGO Monitor, which researches nonprofits, found. In many respects, they operate as a dark money group, allowing other organizations to hide sources of funding and expenditures.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) pressured the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to disclose the ultimate sources of its foundation’s receipt of $12 million from Tides, arguing that funding from the progressive donor-advised fund may conflict with its tax-free status.
“Getting $12 million from Tides and then trying to say it’s really not from Tides, it’s from someone else, that makes me want to look harder,” Smith told The Hill.
The Tides Foundation did not respond to a request from Jewish Insider for comment.
The probe is one of many nonprofits whose tax-exempt status Smith has been examining, including to determine whether universities are failing to prevent antisemitic activities.
According to its 2022 tax filings, Tides entities contributed to nonprofits involved in recent campus and other anti-Israel activism, including Jewish Voice for Peace, Council on American Islamic Relations chapters (CAIR) in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Minnesota, IfNotNow, CODEPINK and others, as well as WESPAC (Westchester County Peace Action Committee), which, in turn, supports National Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine.
Tides also supports Palestine Legal, which has sued universities for cracking down on anti-Israel protests, and the Adalah Justice Project, which began organizing protests within days of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, through a fiscal sponsorship since 2013 and 2016, respectively.
This arrangement obscures NGOs’ financial operations, including their donors, donation amounts, staff, salary and other expenditures, and makes it nearly impossible to trace sources of funding or whether donations are being used for their intended purpose.
Legally, the fiscal sponsorship means that Palestine Legal and Adalah Justice Project are part of the Tides Foundation, which files tax documents on their behalf, even though the former presents itself as “an independent organization” and the latter says it is “a Palestinian-led advocacy organization.”
Nonprofits that receive “Model A Fiscal Sponsorship” manage their entire backends through Tides; they fall under Tides’ 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, Tides does their financial accounting, payroll processing and human resources management, provides benefits to employees and administers grants, among other services, and collects a 9% fee.
In 2022, the last year for which Tides’ IRS disclosures are available, the five entities reported spending $158,217,539 on salaries. Yet the reported “officers, directors, key employees and highest compensated employees,” as well as the major independent contractors of Tides entities, add up to $36,554,485. The remaining $121.6 million is unexplained. Tides pays the salaries of employees of fiscally sponsored organizations, such as Palestine Legal and Adalah Justice Project.
Fiscal sponsorship allows NGOs like Palestine Legal and Adalah Justice Project not to disclose their donors, though in their case, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund contributed close to $1 million to Tides in 2023 and earmarked more than half for them.
George Soros’ Open Society Foundations contributed $25.8 million between 2020 and 2021. In 2019, $225,000 of its donations to Tides were for pro-Palestinian causes.
Other notable Tides donors include a foundation funded by Susan Pritzker, wife of Hyatt Hotel heir Nick Pritzker, a relative of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, and, in the past, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation (WESPAC) received $97,000 from Tides in 2022, nearly half of its funding that year, and reported spending almost $1.5 million on “office expenses,” in an office with just one part-time employee, The Washington Free Beacon found.
WESPAC is the fiscal sponsor of National Students for Justice in Palestine, which victims of the Oct. 7 attack are suing for allegedly being “collaborators and propagandists for Hamas.”
The lawsuit states that “the financial interactions between WESPAC and its anti-Israel clientele is intentionally opaque to largely shield from public view the flow of funds between and among them.”
A group of 16 Republican senators called last week for the IRS to investigate WESPAC and other groups for supporting terrorism. Their letter noted the “heinous support [National Student for Justice in Palestine] chapters across the country have supported for Hamas, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
WESPAC does not disclose its fiscal sponsors, but the Anti-Defamation League reported that “most of WESPAC’s current or former fiscal sponsorships goes to support anti-Israel projects and groups,” such as Within Our Lifetime, which has been a major driver of anti-Israel protests in New York.
NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg said that “the hidden funding for the carefully planned ‘spontaneous protests’ needs to be addressed urgently.”
“The leaders of the network manipulated huge IRS loopholes that allow for secret payment of salaries, rent and other major costs for what are supposed to be transparent ‘civil society’ groups,” Steinberg added. “By funneling their money via Tides and other fiscal sponsors, the donors, possibly including foreign entities, remain hidden, in contrast to basic democratic norms.”
CORRECTION: Open Society Foundations contributed $25.8 million to the Tides Foundation in 2020 and 2021 combined; an earlier version of the story wrote the contributions were only in 2021.
Emerson College president offers to pay bail for anti-Israel protesters arrested at school
The president of Emerson College became the latest university leader to face sharp criticism for his handling of the anti-Israel encampment protests after he offered to pay bail for protesters arrested at the Boston liberal arts school and requested that they not be prosecuted.
Following the arrest last week of 118 “Gaza solidarity encampment” protesters, who camped out in tents for weeks in the middle of campus, Emerson President Jay Bernhardt sent a campus-wide email last week saying that the school “has continued to be supportive in multiple ways – sending staff to all the precincts and posting bail for arrested students, canceling and modifying classes so our community could process what had occurred, and providing additional care and support for our community to heal.”
“The College will not bring any campus disciplinary charges against the protestors and will encourage the district attorney not to pursue charges related to encampment violations,” Bernhardt, who is Jewish, wrote.
Roni Moser, an Israeli freshman at Emerson, said in a speech at a pro-Israel rally in Boston on April 28 that the encampments have been the “climax” of the anti-Israel rhetoric that has engulfed the Boston campus since Oct. 7. While Emerson’s undergraduate enrollment is only about 4,000 students, its Students for Justice in Palestine account has more than 6,000 followers.
Moser said that the protesters have “written hateful speech on walls and screamed violent chants repeatedly.”
“People have the right to protest. People shouldn’t have the right to use such violent and antisemitic speech,” she said, pointing to slogans that have been thrown around campus including “Long live the intifada” and “Israel is antisemitic.”
“Jewish students were personally harassed, to the point where many had to be removed from campus, and temporarily placed in hotels,” Moser said, adding that “friends of mine were called terrorists.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, called on Bernhardt to “reverse this decision” and for “the Suffolk district attorney to enforce the law.”
“The president of Emerson is going out of his way to make sure students who broke the law and violated Emerson’s own policies face no consequences,” Greenblatt said in a statement.
Several universities around the country have recently struck deals with anti-Israel protesters to quell the turmoil on college campuses — including giving protesters a seat at the table regarding investment decisions, which Jewish leaders warn could further poison the atmosphere for Jewish students. But at most schools, the concessions have been largely symbolic.
Greenblatt said that in Emerson’s case, “This capitulates to the most extreme voices and rewards their disruptive conduct. The Emerson community deserves better.”
In a follow-up letter to students on Monday, Bernhardt announced that the university “will establish a campus bias rapid response team.”
“I deeply regret that despite our best efforts, our students’ activism resulted in police action over their encampment, especially in the heartbreaking way it occurred,” Bernhardt wrote.
He went on to say that, “Regarding financial divestment, the Board of Trustees has considered this request and may continue to do so further in the future.”
Biden condemns violent campus protests, Oct. 7 denialism and defenders in Holocaust remembrance speech
In a forceful speech on Tuesday at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on Capitol Hill, President Joe Biden delivered strong remarks denouncing violent anti-Israel protests on college campuses, harassment and violence targeting the American Jewish community and ongoing efforts to deny, downplay or move past the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The remarks, one of Biden’s clearest denunciations of antisemitism and Hamas in months, came amid surging anti-Israel protests on college campuses around the country and growing domestic and international pressure on Israel.
“I see your fear, your hurt and your pain, let me reassure you as your president you are not alone, you belong, you always have and you always will,” Biden said. “And my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree.”
The president said that the right to hold strong beliefs about world events and to “debate, disagree, protest peacefully” is fundamental to America, but that there is “no place on any campus in America, any place in America for antisemitism, hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”
Biden emphasized that attacks and destruction of property — which have happened on a number of campuses — are not protected speech and are illegal.
“We are not a lawless country, we are a civil society. We uphold the rule of law,” Biden said. “No one should have to hide or be afraid just to be themselves.”
He said that it’s incumbent on all Americans to “be those guardians, we must never rest, we must rise against hate, meet across the divide, see our common humanity,” and that attacks on any minority group are threats to all minority groups.
Biden also condemned those who have already moved past the Hamas attack on Israel, and the “too many people” who are “denying, downplaying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust and Oct. 7, including Hamas’ appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews.”
“Now, here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven and a half months later,” Biden said. “People are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. It was Hamas that brutalized Israelis, it was Hamas that took and that continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten and neither have you. And we will not forget.”
He connected such rhetoric to the Holocaust, highlighting that the Holocaust began with smaller crimes in the face of “indifference” from the world.
“It’s absolutely despicable and it must stop,” Biden added, of the Oct. 7 denialism. “Silence and denial can hide much but it can erase nothing… it cannot be buried no matter how hard people try.”
Biden pledged that he is “working around the clock” and “will not rest” until all hostages held in Gaza are freed.
In connection with Biden’s speech, the administration announced on Tuesday a series of additional steps to combat antisemitism.
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights issued new guidance to every school district and college in the country that provides “examples of Antisemitic discrimination, as well as other forms of hate,” which could prompt civil rights investigations, according to a White House announcement.
Education officials told Jewish leaders last week the guidance is aimed at helping school leaders distinguish between protected free speech and antisemitic incidents.
The Department of Homeland Security will create a new “campus safety resources guide” to help schools access “financial, educational and technical assistance” available to them.
DHS is also set to assemble and disseminate guidance on “community-based targeted violence and terrorism prevention” and ensure that targeted communities are aware of the federal resources available to them.
And the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism will bring together technology companies to discuss procedures for combating antisemitism online.
In separate remarks, Stuart Eizenstat, the administration’s special adviser for Holocaust issues, praised the House for passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would codify the requirement that the Department of Education use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and its examples in assessing campus antisemitism. Eizenstat said the bill would help clarify the definition of antisemitism.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) drew direct connections between the Holocaust, and the events that led up to it, and current events on U.S. college campuses, highlighting the role of German universities in perpetuating antisemitism and ultimately atrocities during the Holocaust.
“We remember what happened then, and now today, we are witnessing American universities quickly becoming hostile for Jewish students and faculty,” Johnson said. “The very campuses [that] were once the envy of the international academy have succumbed to an antisemitic virus… Now is the time for moral clarity, and we must put an end to this madness.”
Speaking graphically about both events, Johnson drew direct parallels between the atrocities of the Holocaust and the Oct. 7 attack.
“We must be graphic right now because the threat of repeating the past is so great,” Johnson said. “And some are trying to downplay, justify what happened on Oct. 7. Some are even blaming Israel for the barbaric, inhuman attacks. There are some who would prefer to criticize Israel and lecture them on their military tactics… than punish the terrorists who perpetrated these horrific crimes.”
Johnson added that it’s “very important we deliver” the “critical assistance” to Israel “without any delay at all” and that “we have to do all that we can, everything within our power, to ensure that evil does not prevail.”
The administration has reportedly been delaying shipments of bombs to Israel over disputes about Israel’s operations in Gaza.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) likewise highlighted the “deeply disturbing rise in antisemitism on campuses, throughout the country and around the world, adding that it’s a “very searing time for the Jewish community.”
Jeffries called to “recommit to the principle of Never Again,” and to “eradicating antisemitism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head.”
“We must crush antisemitism along with racism and sexism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia and all other forms of hatred, together,” Jeffries said. “That is the American way, together. And together, we will defeat antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now. That’s a moral necessity.”
