Tipsheet

Anti-Semitic Behavior at Ivy Leagues Keeps Getting Worse and Worse

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  November 02, 2023 6:15 PM

Fewer institutions have had a more problematic response to the rampant anti-semitism on college campuses than Harvard. Townhall has covered how students were identified for signing onto pro-Hamas statements, only for the university to then protect these students with a task force. Footage has now circulated of Ibrahim Bharmal, the editor of the Harvard Law Review, confronting and blocking the path of Jewish students walking through campus.

"Many law programs have been taken over by far-left ideologues," Andy Ngô posted when sharing the footage on Wednesday.

Harvard has thus been among those institutions where donors have pulled out and job offers have been pulled. And, as The New York Times reported on Thursday morning, two dozen firms signed onto a letter putting campuses on notice. Our sister site of Twitchy also highlighted reactions to the letter.

Hedge fund manager and Harvard alumni Bill Ackman has also called out schools for not doing more. His frequent X posts include calling on schools to release the names of students who have signed onto such pro-Hamas statements and for action to be taken against Bharmal.

As the Harvard Crimson noted last week, though, "Harvard’s career services center is also 'reaching out to employers independently to vouch for students and to discredit the doxxed profiles.'" 

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There's also been a surge of donors fleeing from such institutions, including when it comes to Harvard. "Wall Street titans help to fuel Ivy League donor revolt," read a CNBC headline from earlier on Thursday.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) called out Harvard's response during her Thursday morning appearance on "Fox and Friends."

She called the anti-semitism at Harvard "inexcusable," and said that the school "has totally failed in terms of condemning the significant rise of anti-semitism," adding that she and other Harvard alumni in Congress led a letter "strongly condemning President Claudine Gay," criticizing how "she put a task force in place, the students should be expelled who are not only going after Jewish students, but also saying these heinous, horrific anti-semitic comments."

"So shame on Harvard and all of these institutions for not taking a strong stance on this. We will put on the floor a resolution condemning anti-semitism on college campuses, another area where Republicans will lead," Stefanik added. That resolution ultimately passed in the House.

Harvard isn't the only university standing by its pro-Hamas students, though. Columbia praised them.

The university's website is full of statements from the past few days on the matter, including "Announcing Doxing Resource Group" and "Announcing Task Force on Antisemitism," both from Wednesday.

"Today we are announcing the formation of a Task Force on Antisemitism to enhance our ability to address this ancient, but terribly resilient, form of hatred. We are taking this step as part of a commitment to ensuring that our campuses are safe, welcoming, and inclusive for Jewish students, faculty, and staff, and all of us," the statement on the latter read in part. It may be "ancient," but there's been a sharp and concerning rise, in part because it is allowed to be so "resilient."

When it comes to that announcement on the resource group, Columbia President Minouche Shafik and Barnard College President Laura Ann Rosenbury express considerable concern.

As the announcement reads early on, with added emphasis:

The deliberate harassment and targeting of members of our community by doxing, a dangerous form of intimidation, is unacceptable. Many individuals, including students across several schools, have been subject to these attacks by third parties. This includes disturbing incidents in which trucks have circled the Columbia campus displaying and publicizing the names and photos of Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian students.

We are grateful for the persistence and perseverance of the students, and their families, in the face of this harassment. We are assembling available resources to support them and the staff and faculty who are by their side.

These announcements come after, as Madeline covered, over 100 Columbia and Barnard professors signed onto a statement calling on the university administration to protect students from "disturbing reverberations." 

Just as they did at Harvard, Columbia students have also signed onto pro-Hamas statements.

Meanwhile, another Ivy League, Cornell University, saw threats made to Jewish students on Sunday night. On Tuesday, a suspect was arrested and charged. On Wednesday, Cornell President Martha Pollock released a statement on "Standing against antisemitism and all forms of hate" and students and faculty will have Friday off for a community day. 

Beyond those threats, Professor Russell Rickford, a history professor at Cornell University, claimed not long after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel that it was "exhilarating" and "energizing." He requested to go on and was placed on leave. 

"Many law programs have been taken over by far-left ideologues," Ngô's post above had mentioned. As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and co-host Ben Ferguson discussed during Wednesday's episode of "The Verdict," that's how it is with places taken over by "cultural Marxism." This applies to Israel, and how "we're seeing across our country this wave of anti-semitism, of vicious anti-Israel hate in our colleges and universities."

Marxism now has "has spread to education," in addition to other fields beyond socio-economic terms," Cruz explained. "In every instance, the Marxist argument is that the people who are coded as victims should use force, should use violence, should use the power of government to forcibly destroy the oppressors, and redistribute what they view as their illegitimate ill-gotten gains to the victims."

This particularly applies to Jews, where on college campuses and in pro-Hamas protests around the country, they're being called out as supposed oppressors and occupiers. "The problem for Jewish people in America and across the world," Cruz explained, "is for the radical left, Jews are coded for the Marxists as oppressors."

"So, when they look at Israel, Jews are the bad guys. And the Palestinians are the oppressed minority," the senator added "And so, in that narrative, what the cultural Marxists support is, the violent overthrow of the Jewish government in Israel, is the murder of Jewish civilians in Israel. And sadly, we're seeing the manifestation of cultural Marxism playing out in Israel today."

As the podcast discussed and Townhall has covered, White House Press Secreary Karine Jean-Pierre has been unable to fully call out the pro-Hamas demonstrations that occurred last weekend, with Ferguson pointing out "it's amazing how much this administration will fall over themselves to not just give you a basic answer," something Cruz chalked up to being a tactic where "their default is to attack Trump."

Not only that, but "they're not willing to call out the left. They're not willing to call out the squad. They're not willing to call out Rashida Talib, or Ilhan Omar, they're not willing to call out AOC, they're not willing to call out the vicious antisemitism coming from the Democrat Party in the House," Cruz said.

That includes the issues above, as the senator pointed out the Biden administration is "also not willing to call out the nasty and vicious anti-semitism from college radicals on colleges across the country and particularly elite universities. Look the Ivy League, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia it has been disgraceful at the so-called elite universities, the vicious, nasty anti-semitism," Cruz shared. He mentioned the letter he signed onto with Stefanik, wondering "why would you not denounce these rabid anti-Semites, 35 student groups at Harvard, put out a statement that blamed the horrific violence in Israel on Israel?"

Cruz very much had a "holy crap" reaction to the statements pro-Hamas students signed onto blaming Israel, with a message about thise students. "And the only person who says that Hamas terrorists beheading infants is the fault of Israel is a vicious anti-semite who is diluted. And the Harvard administration, like the administration of many other universities, are so politically woke that they're terrified to call out the radical left, and the chickens are coming home to roost," he added.

While the White House announced a task force about anti-semtitism on college campuses on Monday and Jean-Pierre more forcefully condemned anti-semitism during that day's press briefing, it wasn't exactly widely discussed, and certainly not in comparison to Wednesday's announcement of an initiative to "counter Islamophobia."