WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Republican Leadership Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) sent a letter to Dr. Alan Garber, President of Harvard University, requesting information about several incidents, entities, and partnerships at Harvard that have contributed to a hostile antisemitic environment on campus.
In the letter, Walberg and Stefanik write: “Harvard does not appear to have disciplined—and instead has rewarded—two students who assaulted an Israeli Jewish student who was filming a ‘die-in’ protest on October 18, 2023. Following the attack, Harvard said that it would ‘address the incident through its student disciplinary procedures’ after law enforcement completed its investigations… To make matters worse, in April of this year, one of the attackers received a $65,000 fellowship through the Harvard Law Review to work at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that even the Biden-Harris administration disavowed due to its virulent antisemitism.”
The letter continues: “Harvard was reportedly due, by the end of spring 2025, to announce whether it would permanently end its partnership with Birzeit University, an institution whose student body overwhelmingly supports Hamas. The Committee is concerned that Harvard has not made its decision, if any, public. In a January 2024 email, you expressed resistance to the idea of ending the partnership, stating that ‘if the big issue is that Hamas is popular on the Birzeit campus … were we to shut down the program on that basis, we’d give ammunition to [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS)] advocates.’ Refusing to partner with a university that explicitly endorses a U.S. designated terrorist organization is entirely different than the BDS movement, which boycotts the only democracy in the Middle East because it is Jewish.”
The letter concludes by requesting detailed records and internal communications from Harvard about antisemitism. The lawmakers specifically seek documents, timelines, and deliberations concerning antisemitic complaints, the October 2023 assault on an Israeli Jewish student, the Harvard Business School Antisemitism Working Group report, the Birzeit partnership review, curriculum changes tied to antisemitism concerns, Presidential Task Force action plans, and any antisemitism-related materials from Harvard’s DEI office.
Read the full letter here.
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