Harvard
May 9, 2025 — John Hinderaker
I don’t think we have said much about the latest round of rioting at Columbia. Here are a couple of brief videos of the criminals at work: View this post on Instagram A post shared by AJC Global (@ajc.global) View this post on Instagram A post shared by @sabrasoulx These are some of the worst people in the world. Anyone who would riot and commit vandalism to advance the causes
»
May 5, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Three hours ago, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told Harvard to forget about applying for future grant money from the federal government: it won’t be forthcoming. This is an obvious sequel to battles the administration has been fighting with Harvard and other universities. Those fights involve the administration’s efforts to block or retrieve funding that had already been committed by the Biden administration. Whatever the legal merits of those efforts
»
April 30, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday, two Harvard University task forces submitted reports on their investigations of bias at the university. The report of the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias is here. It is 311 pages long, so I have only skimmed it. The New York Times notes the report’s unfortunate timing: A Harvard task force released a scathing account of the university on Tuesday, finding that antisemitism had infiltrated coursework,
»
April 26, 2025 — John Hinderaker
In thinking about the current battle between the Trump administration and Harvard University, fought over anti-Semitism and DEI, I recalled an earlier controversy in which Harvard–specifically, its law school–pled guilty to racism. I wrote about it here and elsewhere. In 2015, Harvard Law School was roiled by a supposed incident of racism, in which someone placed black tape over the portraits of some of the school’s black professors. Like this:
»
April 24, 2025 — John Hinderaker
A more or less open state of war exists between President Trump and academia. Opening shots have been fired, most notably by Harvard in its lawsuit seeking to restore funding that the administration has frozen. As I wrote here, I expect that Harvard will win that case. But that is a battle, not the war. At Legal Insurrection, my friend Louis Bonham lays out a strategy that seems promising. It
»
April 21, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Earlier today, Harvard University sued various officials and departments of the Trump administration. Harvard’s complaint, which you can read here, seeks injunctive relief overturning the administration’s announcement that it was “freezing” $2.2 billion in federal grants to the university. Harvard’s complaint alleges that the administration’s termination of funding violates the First Amendment. That strikes me as debatable. More substantially, the complaint alleges that the administration failed to follow the Administrative
»
April 16, 2025 — John Hinderaker
When I first saw President Trump’s suggestion that Harvard might lose its tax-exempt status, in addition to federal funding, I considered it mere Trumpian bombast. But Randy Barnett’s comment puts it in a different light: People should familiarize themselves with Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983). https://t.co/Oqt1IFraoq — Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) April 15, 2025 It had been a long time since I had thought about the
»
April 15, 2025 — John Hinderaker
The Trump administration has threatened to cut funding to a number of universities unless they take action to combat anti-Semitism as well as comply with federal nondiscrimination law. I haven’t seen reports on how other schools have responded, but Harvard has refused to comply with the administration’s requests. As usual, reporting on this controversy has been less than illuminating. First, what exactly did the Trump administration ask of Harvard? It
»
March 10, 2025 — John Hinderaker
The Trump administration’s pulling of $400 million in grants and contracts has reverberated through the world of higher education. Harvard has announced a hiring freeze, although they don’t quite call it that. The language is turgid, but the point comes through: Universities throughout the nation face substantial financial uncertainties driven by rapidly shifting federal policies. Yes, we now have an administration that is opposed to anti-Semitism. Effective immediately, Harvard will
»
November 1, 2024 — John Hinderaker
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce has released a report titled “Antisemitism On College Campuses Exposed.” At 122 pages, plus a much longer appendix, I haven’t had time to read it all. I want to call attention to one section of the report that describes the reaction of some educators and politicians to the scrutiny that universities received in the wake of widespread anti-Semitic activity on their campuses.
»
June 28, 2024 — Steven Hayward
A few weeks back Harvard announced that it would henceforth practice “institutional neutrality” on hot button political and social issues, and no longer issue official university statements. This is an obvious case of closing the barn door after the animals have all escaped, and is clearly a dodge to avoid offending competing alumni and faculty interests with any kind of position on the Hamas War against Israel. For once taking
»
June 6, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Harvard is trying to distance itself from its image as a left-wing institution, strongly aligned with the Democratic Party. Last week, the university said it would stop taking public positions on issues that are not relevant to its core functions as an educational institution. Now, Harvard has announced that its faculty of Arts and Sciences will no longer be subject to a DEI hiring requirement: Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts
»
April 4, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Via InstaPundit, the Wall of Anti-Semitism at Harvard: Remember when Jews at Harvard had to bring in their menorah every night at Hanukkah because the school couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t be vandalized? This “apartheid wall” is on display now at Harvard yard, complete with quotes from terrorists, guarded 24/7 by school security. pic.twitter.com/IBAS0RmmxL — Yael Bar tur 🎗️ (@yaelbt) April 3, 2024 I can’t vouch for what she says about
»
January 27, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Roger Kimball’s New Criterion editorial on “DEI’s dangerous lies” is titled “Gay science,” in honor of sacked Harvard president Claudine Gay. Roger’s editorial lacks only some accompanying reference to Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, which I actually read under the tutelage of my political philosophy teacher last year. It was in The Gay Science that Nietzsche announced “God is dead.” I thought Roger’s editorial might have announced that Harvard is dead.
»
January 20, 2024 — Scott Johnson
James Piereson contributes to understanding the deep meaning of Claudine Gay and the regime of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in his New Criterion column “DEI boomerang.” The title does not do it justice. Here is the concluding chunk: College presidents, if they are not members of the Democratic Party, invariably come into office pledging to enlarge the diversity regime, which further cements the party–academic alliance. College faculties are overwhelmingly Democratic
»
January 12, 2024 — John Hinderaker
A group of Jewish graduate students at Harvard, including several from the law school, have sued that university alleging rampant anti-Semitism in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The complaint is embedded below, and I encourage you to at least skim it–it is 77 pages long. What is striking about the complaint is the breadth and depth of its factual allegations. If they are true,
»
January 7, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard freshman Charlie Covit explains why it is still hard to be a Jew at Harvard, notwithstanding Claudine Gay’s demise: [T]he crisis facing Harvard’s Jewish community hasn’t gone away. A zealous hatred of Israel has swept our campus, thinly veiling an epidemic of antisemitism. Ms. Gay’s testimony in Congress, in which she said calls for the genocide of Jews were context-dependent, was representative of
»
