Congress demands answers from Harvard and Penny Pritzker on antisemitism on campus — and gives two weeks to comply
A House committee is requesting a trove of documents from Harvard University officials including Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker as it continues its investigation into antisemitism at the Ivy League school.
The wide-ranging request sent by the same committee which last month called on then-President Claudine Gay to testify is now giving Harvard just two weeks to fork over all documents related to Jewish ജstudents and antisemitism on campus.
signed by Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, and sent to Pritzker and I꧅nterim President Alan Garber on Tuesday, said members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce express “grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of Harvard’s response to the antisemitism on campus,” and demand answers.
Despite Gay announcing last week she would resign, “Harvard’s institutional failures regarding antisemitism extend well beyond one leader,” acco𒁏rding to the letter, a copy of which was seen by The Post
Foxx cited several instances in which conservatives were disinvited from speaking on campus or ♌had their courses removed as she took aim at Gay’s previous assertion that the context matters in determining whether calls for the genocide of Jews violate university policy.
“Harvard’s dismal record on free speech exposes t🍃he intellectual and moral bankruptcy of its leadership’s rationalization for its i🐠naction towards antisemitism on campus.”
She also referenced a report about the 2021-22 school year from the AMCH൩A Initiative, a nonprofit that documents antisemitism on campus.
It found that among the 109 universities it surveyed, Harva⭕rd had the highest rate of threats to Jewish identity.
“There is evidence antisemitism has been pervasive at Harvard since well before 🅰the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack,” she wrote.
The committee is now seeking more than two dozen different categories of information from the university, including internal emails and text messages between board members, proof that students and staff faced disciplinary actions for the harassment of Jewish students and fu❀nding documents — esꦅpecially those that show donations from Qatari sources.
The Congressional request reads:
- Harvard’s Jewish undergraduate population has fallen dramatically from approximately 1,675 students in 2013 to 700 in 2023, according to estimates from Hillel International. 16 This constitutes a decrease from 25 percent of the undergraduate student body to only 9.8 percent.17 A 2023 survey by The Harvard Crimson found 5.4 percent of the class of 2027 identified as Jewish.18
- Pro-Palestinian activists disrupted Harvard classes on November 29, 2023, using bullhorns to shout hateful messages including “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea.”
- Following the October 7 attack, social media platforms were flooded with antisemitic social media posts by Harvard students. To provide several representative examples, one post stated, “Harvard Hillel is burning in hell / Harvard Hillel is burning in hell / And they got funded by Epstein as well.”7 Posts on the anonymous messaging platform SideChat, which requires a Harvard e-mail address to access, stated “LET EM COOK” next to a Palestinian flag emoji and “I proudly accept the label of terrorist.”8
The committee is also asking for any and all reports of allegations of hate crimes that disrupted access to safe learning environments, as well as data showing Jewish enrollment numbers at the university and graduate and professional schools since ℱ2003.
It is also seeking documents related to any attempt by university officials “to understand the reason for any such changes or trends” in the enrollment data, including communications from the school’s ൲O🌸ffice of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging related to Jews and antisemitism.
The committee is even seeking the minutes from the Harvard Corporation and Board of Ov🍷erseers meetings, as well as posts by Harvard students and faculty targeting Jews on social media.
In a statement to The Post, Harvard a university spokesperson said: “The University is reviewing Chairwoman Foxx’s letter and will be in touch with the Committee regarding their request.”
The university has been plagued by reports of pervasive antisemitism on camp🍃us ဣafter Hamas launched its shock attack on Oct. 7.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, more than 30 Harvard student groups published a letter holding Israel “entirely responsible” for H๊amas’ terror a✨ttack — a letter university leadership did not condemn.
While under Gay’s tenure, a Jewish student had been su🍸rrounded by pro-Palestinian supporters who yelled “shame” at him while he was walking to class, and the campus saw a doxxing truck drive through with students faces on it wh෴o blamed Israᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚel for Hamas attack.
Matters only grew worse when t🍬hen-President Gay refused to say that anyone calling for the genocide of Jews at Harvard would be punished at a Congressional hearing.
“Does calling for the genocide of Jews vio🀅late your university’s code of conduct on bullying or harassment?” New York Rep. Elise Stefanik asked Gay at the hearing.
“It depends on the context,” the ꦡacademic replied.
Following her resignation, Gay called the exchange a “well-laid trap” in an op-ed published in The New York Times.
“Yes, I mad🌠e mistakes. In my initial response to the atrocities of Oct. 7, I should have stated more forcefully what all people of good conscience know: Hamas is a terrorist organizatꩵion that seeks to eradicate the Jewish state,”.
“And at a congressional hearing last month, I fell into a well-laid trap. I neglected to clearly articulate th🦩at calls for the genocide of Jewish people are abhorrent and unacceptable and that I would use every tool at my🤡 disposal to protect students from that kind of hate.”
Gay has had the shortest 🐟tenure as president at Harvard, serving just six months and one day. She was the first black leader at the nation’s most prestigious university.
