Fight Fiercely, Harvard?

What a laughingstock Harvard has become. It gets its knickers in a twist because it has been accused of fostering a climate of antisemitism — how unfair! —and it has tried every trick of legal legerdemain to avoid a lawsuit that would require it to submit to close inspection of its conduct, both toward Jewish students, and toward their antisemitic tormentors on campus. Now it has shamelessly called for a lawsuit brought by six Jewish Harvard students to be dropped, on the theory that what they claim happened in the past is now being addressed by Harvard. More on this can be found here: “Harvard University Wants Antisemitism Lawsuit Dismissed, Denies Injury to Students,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, April 15, 2024:

Lawyers representing Harvard University in Massachusetts have requested the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by six Jewish students who accused the school of ignoring antisemitic discrimination.

“According to The Harvard Crimson, the university said in a court filing that a lawsuit, as well as a period of discovery during which its conduct would be thoroughly examined, was not necessary due to the “tangible steps” it has taken to combat antisemitism in just the past few months. Additionally, the school argued that the civil suit, led by graduate student Shabbos Kestenbaum and Students Against Antisemitism, lacked standing.

So Harvard’s lawyers are claiming that because it has (supposedly) changed its conduct, by at long last taking “tangible steps” to combat antisemitism, it would be wrong to investigate its previous conduct, in which it did nothing to combat, and much to foster, a climate of antisemitism. In essence Harvard is claiming, just like a Hollywood gangster, to have gone straight, so let’s forget about those little peccadilloes from a few months ago. Why dredge up the past? Let bygones be bygones. We’re now on the straight and narrow. Honest. Cross our conniving crimson hearts, and hope to die. It’s a fascinating legal theory. We are no longer doing the bad things you Jewish students accuse us of having done, so where’s the harm to you now?

“Without minimizing at all the importance of the need to address energetically antisemitism at the university, plaintiff’s dissatisfaction with the strategy and speed of Harvard’s essential work does not state a legally cognizable claim,” said the motion to dismiss, as quoted by The Crimson. “Consequently, the amended complaint should be dismissed.”…

The six students claim they suffered from an antisemitic atmosphere that engulfed the campus, in some cases including physical threats, and that Harvard’s administration did nothing about it. The on-campus expressions of antisemitism, including the endless anti-Israel chants by crowds of rabid protestors calling for Israel to disappear (“From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free”), to be replaced by a twenty-third Arab state, certainly made concentrated study much more difficult. In some cases, Jewish students were even blocked from attending classes. Jewish students were made anxious, and felt abandoned by the administration that did nothing to alleviate that anxiety by swiftly punishing the perpetrators. Why is that not a “legally cognizable claim”? Does Harvard really believe that because, in its view, it is now at last beginning to improve the situation, its past conduct is to be given a pass?

In February, a faculty group posted on social an antisemitic cartoon which showed a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David dangling two men of color from a noose….

This grotesque antisemitic image, accusing Jews collectively of hanging — lynching — black men, was put up not by a group of callow-and-shallow students, but by a bunch of Harvard faculty members. The university did not denounce either the image, or those faculty members. That’s one more argument against tenure — there are so many.

Provide us, Harvard, please, with all relevant postings on social media. Provide the court with those emails where your administrators discuss those anti-Israel protestors, who openly declare that their aim is to eliminate Israel and to replace it with a twenty-third Arab state, and who support Hamas, which is a designated terror group. Let’s find out about your unwillingness to discipline them. In fact, let’s see if you failed to adequately protect your Jewish students from those hellbent on making their lives miserable. Tell us how you responded when pro-Palestinian students invaded lecture halls and classrooms, preventing pro-Israel or Jewish professors from proceeding with their classes. Tell us what you did to punish the students, and non-students, too, who surrounded a Jewish student, and proceeded to scream in his face anti-Israel slogans while holding him captive, until he finally managed to extricate himself and flee. And after all that vicious mayhem, how many anti-Israel and pro-Hamas activists have you expelled from the university? None? Can that possibly be true?

Fight fiercely, Harvard, said Harvard graduate Tom Lehrer, who, like so many Harvard graduates in recent decades, has come to dislike what the place has become. Harvard is fighting fiercely, to have the lawsuit dropped, so that the public will not find out just how wide the moral rot has spread. It will be quite a day of reckoning when, thanks to this lawsuit about antisemitism, the dark secrets of Massachusetts Hall and University Hall are spilled into the sunlight.