‘Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination,’ anti-Semitism task force says
The Trump administration will strip Harvard University of an additional $450 million in federal grants as it ramps up pressure on the Ivy League school over anti-Semitic campus protests, citing two recent Washington Free Beacon reports, one on racial discrimination at the Harvard Law Review and the other on a fellowship that the law review awarded to a student accused of accosting an Israeli classmate.
“Harvard University has repeatedly failed to confront the pervasive race discrimination and anti-Semitic harassment plaguing its campus,” the Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism wrote in a statement, noting that “Jewish students were subjected to pervasive insults, physical assault, and intimidation, with no meaningful response from Harvard’s leadership.”
“As a result, eight federal agencies across the government are announcing the termination of approximately $450 million in grants to Harvard, which is in addition to the $2.2 billion that was terminated last week,” the statement reads.
The Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard in April after the university snubbed White House demands to take stronger action against campus anti-Semitism. President Donald Trump has also proposed revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status if the Ivy League school “keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness.'”
The Justice Department’s anti-Semitism task force highlighted two Free Beacon reports that revealed a pattern of what the department called “endemic race discrimination” at the Harvard Law Review.
According to eight memos reviewed by the Free Beacon, the Law Review factors race into nearly every stage of its selection process, with editors routinely advancing or rejecting pieces based partly on the author’s race. In one instance, an editor labeled an author’s race as a “negative” when recommending his article be dropped.
The task force also condemned the Law Review for awarding a $65,000 fellowship to a protester facing criminal charges for assaulting a Jewish student on campus. The fellowship funds “recent Harvard Law School graduates” with “a demonstrated interest in serving the public interest through their work and scholarship,” according to the Free Beacon‘s report.
“Harvard’s campus, once a symbol of academic prestige, has become a breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination,” the task force wrote, adding that “by prioritizing appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support.”
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