‘Harvard has failed to impose meaningful discipline on antisemitic students,’ House Ed Committee writes in new report
Twelve days into the anti-Israel encampment at Harvard University, then-interim president Alan Garber said participants posed “a significant risk to the educational environment.” After ending the encampment, his administration brought disciplinary cases against 68 students. Now, with fall classes in full swing, none of those students are suspended and most are in good standing, according to a House Committee on Education and the Workforce report.
The report, released Thursday, admonishes Harvard for failing to impose “meaningful discipline on antisemitic students who engaged in conduct in violation of University rules, including participating in the Harvard encampment, occupying a campus building, and disrupting classes.” Fifty-two of the 68 student encampment participants referred for discipline, for example, are now in “good standing,” according to the report. Fifteen are on probation, and one is on leave. None are suspended.
The revelation suggests Garber will not take a harsher stance toward anti-Israel protesters than his predecessor, Claudine Gay, who infamously declared during a December congressional hearing that “calling for the genocide of Jews” may not violate Harvard’s harassment rules. It depends on “the context in which that language is used,” Gay said. She resigned roughly a month later.
Garber, who became Harvard’s permanent president in August, initially suspended five students for encampment-related violations. Harvard went on to downgrade those sanctions “to probation of no more than a semester,” according to the committee report.
Included in the downgrade was a student who “participated in the encampment and raised a Palestinian flag over University Hall” and “was initially informed he would receive a three-semester suspension. Thereafter, however, the consequential three-semester suspension was downgraded to mere probation until December 20, 2024.” Four other encampment participants were first required to withdraw for two terms but will now be off probation in less than a month, according to the committee.
Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In addition to the encampment participants, the committee’s report states that Harvard “failed to impose any formal discipline” on unlawful anti-Israel protesters “between October 7 and the April 24 formation of the encampment.” Though the school referred 12 students for discipline over anti-Semitic incidents during that period, none of them “received any formal discipline and all remain in good standing.”
Harvard also gave informal “admonishments” to nine students who occupied a school building in November, meaning those students “received no formal disciplinary consequences at all.” Five other students who interrupted classes with chants of “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada” were also informally “admonished.” Two of them had participated in the building occupation roughly two weeks earlier.
“As these examples demonstrate, Harvard investigated and documented student violations of its policies, some of which were deemed to warrant semesters-long suspensions, but ultimately failed to enforce its own rules and impose meaningful discipline,” the committee wrote in its report.
“Imposing such discipline would have been consistent with the Harvard Corporation’s pronouncement that ‘calls for violence’ and academic disruptions would ‘not be tolerated,'” the committee went on. “The records, however, reveal that Harvard failed to fulfill this commitment and has permitted students to engage in such conduct with no real consequences.”
In doing so, the committee argued, Harvard “is in violation of Title VI,” which requires schools to provide equal protection based on religion. An active lawsuit from Jewish students at Harvard makes similar claims and could lead to disciplinary measures for faculty members, administrators, and students found “responsible for antisemitic abuse.”
“Harvard failed, end of story,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), who chairs the committee, said in a statement. “The only thing administrators accomplished is appeasing radical students who have almost certainly returned to campus emboldened and ready to repeat the spring semester’s chaos. Harvard must change course immediately.”
Records released by the committee showing the “current status of all offenders” can be viewed here.
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