Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, Congress held hearings with the presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT on antisemitism on college campuses. The Congressional representatives were rigorous with their questions.  See, for example, the exchange between Representative Elise Stefanik and Harvard President Claudine Gay above. 

President Gay’s responses were blasted by the Harvard Hillel Student Organization

After Harvard President Claudine Gay would not say that the calls for the genocide of Jews was a breach of the Ivy League university’s code of conduct, the local campus Jewish organization called on the president to “take action” to protect Jewish students.

When responding to Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, questions on Harvard’s rules for bullying and harassment, President Gay said that speech that qualifies as harassment “depends on the context.”

“President Gay’s refusal to draw a line around threatening antisemitic speech as a violation of Harvard’s policies is profoundly shocking given explicit provisions within the conduct code prohibiting this kind of bullying and harassment,” the Harvard Hillel said in a statement posted on social media.

President Gay’s responses could have been a stronger indictment of the antisemitic hate speech. The entire five-hour hearing is below.

Tony

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