Has Harvard Always Been Anti-Semitic?

Hamas’s October 7 massacre has focused attention on anti-Semitism in American universities. The Claudine Gay episode brought such attention to Harvard, specifically. The Times of Israel notes that anti-Semitism has a long history at that institution:

In a 1934 editorial, Harvard Crimson student journalists spoke out in favor of hosting top Nazi and former Harvard man, Ernst F.S. Hanfstaengl.

Nicknamed “Putzi,” Hanfstaengl was Hitler’s foreign press chief and graduated from Harvard in 1909. The Crimson editorial was published when the Nazis had been in power for a year and issued enabling laws for Hitler to be Germany’s dictator.

“If Herr Hanfstaengl is to be received at all, it should be with the marks of honor appropriate to his high position in the government of a friendly country…a great world power,” wrote the editors.
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Hanfstaengl arrived to Harvard in June 1934, attending receptions given in his honor at the homes of alumni and top administrators, including the president.

Hanfstaengl was welcomed by Harvard, but a few students protested. It would be interesting to know whether they were Jews:

In Harvard Yard on the day of Hanfstaengl’s visit, several students were arrested for protesting Nazism and Hanfstaengl’s welcome back to campus.

“Seven were found guilty of disturbing the peace and sentenced to six months hard labor in the Middlesex House of Correction.”

There is much more to Harvard’s anti-Semitic history:

“[Harvard] contributed to Nazi Germany’s efforts to improve its image in the West,” wrote historian Stephen Norwood in his book, “The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses.”

“Harvard’s administration and many of its student leaders offered important encouragement to the Hitler regime, as it intensified its persecution of Jews and expanded its military strength,” Norwood wrote.

[University President James B.] Conant “was not just silent” about antisemitism, said Norwood, but “actively collaborated in it.”

In May 1934, Conant was publicly mute during the visit of the Nazi warship Karlsruhe to Boston, some of whose crew members were entertained at Harvard.

The next year, Conant permitted Nazi Germany’s top diplomat in Boston to place a wreath bearing the swastika in a Harvard chapel, according to Norwood.

Throughout the 1930s, Harvard tried to keep out Jewish refugees — and especially Jewish professors — as demonstrated in research on European scholars who attempted to flee Hitler.

For many years Harvard, like many other universities, had quotas to prevent “too many” Jews, who persistently scored high on admissions tests, from enrolling. Harvard implemented anti-Jewish quotas by substituting “whole person” admission standards for reliance on objective admissions tests.

The quotas were finally done away with after World War II, and for some decades a high percentage of Harvard students were Jews. But Harvard once again adopted the “whole person” approach, so as to be able to discriminate against Asians, as well as Jews and whites in general, as the Supreme Court found in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Have universities ever been, with respect to vital contemporary political issues, a force for good? That is an interesting question. In the early days of Germany’s National Socialist party, university professors and students were its most enthusiastic adherents. On the other hand, if you visit Harvard’s Memorial Hall, you will be stunned by the number of Harvard students, whose names are written on the walls, who died fighting for the Union in the Civil War. That reflects, no doubt, the abolitionist bent of New England. But at least in that instance, Harvard was not on the wrong side.

The broader question whether universities collectively have ever been a source of wisdom on political issues remains up for debate.