28 House Republicans Slam Harvard’s Antisemitism Task Force Preliminary Report in Letter

Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.), the foremost critic of Harvard in Congress, criticized the preliminary recommendations released by the University’s presidential task force on antisemitism in a letter signed by 27 other House Republicans.

The letter, which was sent to interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 on Monday, called the recommendations “weaker, less detailed, and less comprehensive” than the suggestions presented from the antisemitism advisory group assembled by former Harvard President Claudine Gay in fall 2023.

Garber formed twin task forces charged with combatting antisemitism and anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias days after Gay’s resignation in early January.

The University never publicly disclosed the advisory group’s recommendations, which included banning masked protests on campus and investigating the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging.

“Rather than build on these recommendations by presenting concrete plans for implementing them, the task force took six months to reinvent the wheel and offer an inferior set of recommendations,” the letter stated.

The advisory group’s conclusions only became public after they were published by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce as part of their congressional investigation into campus antisemitism at Harvard.

An investigation by the committee revealed in May that five members of Gay’s eight-person advisory group threatened to resign over fears that Harvard would not implement the policies, which were not previously public. The 28 representatives asked Harvard to announce a plan to implement the 2023 recommendations before the school year begins.

Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who chairs the Committee on Education and the Workforce, notably did not sign the letter to Garber, but the committee wrote in an X post on July 11 that it “wants answers” about the Harvard College Administrative Board’s recent decision to reverse suspensions for students that participated in the pro-Palestine encampment.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that the University “has and will continue to be unequivocal — in our words and actions — that antisemitism is not and will not be tolerated on our campus.

“We remain committed to combating hate and to promoting and nurturing civil dialogue and respectful engagement,” Newton added.

The task force’s preliminary recommendations, released jointly last month alongside a report from the anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab bias task force, asked the University to issue series of statements clarifying values and disciplinary procedure, improve anti-harrasssment training and access to Kosher hot lunches, and “commit to fostering spaces for productive dialogue on difficult subjects.”

Both task forces are expected to publish their final reports during the fall semester.

The letter on Monday also scrutinized Harvard’s relationship with Birzeit University, a Palestinian university located in the West Bank.

It included statements from several high-profile Jewish affiliates criticizing omissions to the preliminary report, including by former antisemitism advisory group member David Wolpe. Both former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers and Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi said the report should have addressed University centers and Harvard’s relationship with Birzeit University in the West Bank.

The Harvard School of Public Health’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights partners with Birzeit to offer a summer course in Jordan on Palestinian social medicine.

HSPH spokesperson Todd Datz wrote in a statement that “the program engages in research and education focused on the structural determinants of health for Palestinians in the occupied territory, Israel, and the diaspora.”

The letter, however, called on Harvard to cut ties with Birzeit over the school’s student government, in which a majority of seats are occupied by students affiliated with Hamas, according to Datz.

Datz wrote that the student government elections have not affected the social medicine program. And while the letter claimed that Birzeit’s student government has a “policy of barring Israeli Jews from campus,” Datz said that the FXB Center’s leadership is unaware of that policy.

“The Israeli government has restricted Israeli citizens from entering portions of the West Bank and has also imposed restrictions on foreign citizens visiting the region,” Datz wrote.

Stefanik’s letter also criticized Garber’s decision to form both a task force charged with combatting antisemitism and a task force focused on combatting anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab bias.

The letter accused the University of “attempts at balancing serve to trivialize antisemitism and distract from the urgency and severity of the problem.”

“While hatred and discrimination against Muslims and Arabs is deplorable and must be addressed, there is simply no comparison between the explosion of pervasive antisemitism on Harvard’s campus and instances of Islamophobia or anti-Arab bias,” the letter stated.

Harvard also took center stage in Stefanik’s speech at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin on Tuesday night.

Stefanik focused her brief remarks on the Dec. 5 congressional hearing that led to Gay’s resignation less than a month later and ignited a congressional investigation into more than a dozen universities.

“Who saw that congressional hearing with the college presidents of so-called elite universities?” Stefanik asked the crowd.

“Oh wait, they are former presidents,” she added.

Correction: July 18, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) delivered a speech on Wednesday, the third night of the Republican National Convention. In fact, she delivered her speech on Tuesday.

—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles or on Threads @camkettles.