The President of Harvard and the university’s other high muck-a-mucks have their offices in stately Massachusetts Hall, from where they are masters of all they survey (and some things they can’t survey, like the colonial-settler outpost Harvard has created in Allston). But now some people, including formerly generous alumni who have now turned off the tap in disgust, have been calling Harvard out for its unwillingness to deal with, or even to recognize, the surge of antisemitism on the campus. The Trump administration wants to pressure the university to deal with this problem — which means cracking down on the post-pubescent stormtroopers and brownshirts who during the past year have been harassing, screaming at, holding captive, Jewish students, preventing them from entering Widener Library and classrooms, interrupting classes by Jewish and Israeli professors, and erecting their encampments in the middle of the quad. Now the Administration has frozen $2.2 billion in federal funds for Harvard, which will only be unfrozen if Harvard does the following: first, it must present a plan on how it will deal with the conduct of the antisemites on campus, what it will do to punish and otherwise discourage such behavior, and ensure the safety of Jewish student; and second, it must end the DEI programs on campus to ensure that only merit will matter — not race or ethnicity — when deciding both on student admissions and on the hiring, and promotion, of faculty.
Professor Jaroslava Halper, a refugee from Communist Czechoslovakia, now a professor at the University of Georgia, has delivered herself of some thoughts on hate here: “Examining the Hate at Harvard, Columbia, and Elsewhere,” by Jaroslava Halper, Algemeiner, April 28, 2025:
My bet is that both Ruth R. Wisse and The Wall Street Journal received more than a handful of nasty comments and threats since her opinion essay (“Harvard is an Islamic Outpost”) appeared in the WSJ last week.
But we should thank her for this powerful piece, where she documents the slow penetration and infestation of Islamist ideology into Harvard and academia at large. This has rapidly accelerated in classrooms and through student action since October 7, 2023. The same process has been happening on numerous other campuses around the US, most prominently at Columbia University.
The ensuing chaos, encampments, limiting campus access to Jewish students and faculty, calls for destruction of Israel and so much more, were encouraged by some campus administrators and faculty as expressions of free speech.
But this conduct has finally been called out for what it is — support for terrorist groups, and an assault on the rights and safety of Jewish students. And as Ruth Wisse compared celebrations of October 7 to Kristallnacht pogroms, she noted that “some people were forced to confront what they tried to ignore.” Some, however, did not — and continued to claim that support for October 7, and calls for genocide against Jewish students, were protected as free speech.
It is incomprehensible that the previous administration let radical leftists, radical Islamists, and their supporters have free rein when it came to endangering the civil rights of Jewish students, and it is incomprehensible that the few student leaders of these antisemitic and anti-Zionist demonstrations were considered heroes and freedom fighters….
The best-known of the campus mob leaders, now presenting themselves as innocents who were only working for peace and justice, include Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Madhawi at Columbia. Both of them are vocal supporters of Hamas, and their idea of “peace” is to obliterate entirely the Jewish state — that is the meaning of the chant “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free” — and to replace it with a 23rd Arab state.
Purse-proud Harvard floats on a cloud of undeserved prestige. And this cloud does not have a silver lining.
rick says
Think the HARVARD Administration would be upset by the lynching of a Jew by campus hamas? What about just the lynch rope placed on the door of a Jewish student? Would the college’s response be even close to that of a black student presented with the same?
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Tom Lehrer:
Fight fiercely, Harvard
Fight, fight, fight
Demonstrate to them our skill
Albeit they possess the might
Nonetheless we have the will
How we shall celebrate our victory
We shall invite the whole team up for tea
(How jolly)
Hurl that spheroid down the field, and
Fight, fight, fight
Fight fiercely, Harvard
Fight, fight, fight
Impress them with our prowess, do
Oh, fellows, do not let the crimson down
Be of stout heart and true
Come on, chaps, fight for Harvard’s glorious name
Won’t it be peachy if we win the game?
(Oh, goody)
Let’s try not to injure them, but
Fight, fight, fight
(Let’s not be rough, though)
Fight, fight, fight
(And do fight fiercely)
Fight, fight, fight
Donovan Nuera says
Still the most effete college football fight song of all time. They still play it after touchdowns.
Westman says
Good word, “effete”, Donovan. Even the power of their pen is flagging as the imprimatur of Harvard fades.
William Swiggart says
Lehrer was a brilliant parodist.
Donovan Nuera says
“Impress them with our prowess, DO!”
best line!!
James Lincoln says
Still want your children to go to Hahvid?
Donovan Nuera says
Don’t overlook the Islamic Law Center at Harvard Law School lead by Prof. Intisar Rabb. Why they need to have a their own department and not one for Catholic Canon Law, Jewish Law, Shinto Law is beyond me except the liberals want to adopt sharia. One of the student interns a few years ago was one of the Omeish daughters from Maryland whose dad was radical MSA president Dr. Omeish and the sister was the Yalie, Abrar, who demanded that the Buckley Society have an imam on stage at the same time to “refute” invited speaker Ayana Hirsi Ali about 10 years ago. (Abrar Omeish, now a councilwoman in VA, had been pulled over for running a red light on police camera and refused the patrolman’s lawful and REPEATED orders to exit the car. She won a lawsuit after he had to use pepper spray and used her “Race” card as well. ).
Donovan Nuera says
The only way to change Hahvahd is for every conservative parent to push their kids to apply and reset the massive imbalance of political “diversity” of 96% of undergrads Democrats. It was only 75% in 1990. Of course almost every professor made some sort of joke about Reagan during lecture to “set the official tone”.
tgusa says
I could have a bone to pick with Harvard if I cared. One of my sons auditioned for Harvard back in 2008. He was a International Baccalaureate student with a 4.0 GPA even though I thought he never really tried that hard. Didn’t know what they were at the time now I do. They were offering him a free ride. They sent a black rep to interview him in South Orange County California. Needless to say they didn’t accept him. It was a surprise to me back then but not now. Instead I paid for his education for less than half the price of Harvard to get a BS in hard science. He got a Masters afterwards. I didn’t count on paying for that but I did. The bonus is that he is the today the good person that I spent so much time and effort to raise. He has not been fouled by that institution. I credit it to luck with some divine intervention thrown in.
James Lincoln says
tgusa,
Sometimes we think that we are losing when we are actually winning.
Your son dodged a major bullet…
tgusa says
Sometimes what you think at the time to be bad and wrong turn out later to be good and right. One thing I have learned after all my years is life never conforms to the visions you thought it will be before the fact. Life newer turns out the way I want it to, dammit, unfair!
jerry glenn says
Harvard surges in the national Islamopandering derby
Bret says
Why are tax payers money going to any college?? Cut off the $2.2 billion for good make colleges make it like any other business and when conservatives alumni cut them off, only then, will they change. The change must include removing this filth from the administration. 40 million college grads owe billions in student loans , and very few can really afford to pay the loan back, and these colleges are guaranteed total payments of these loans through tax payers dollars. This is a scam, instituted by the government making sure these students are taught progressive policies.
OLD GUY says
Harvard has fell into the trap of the Muslim money games.