Don’t Be Fooled — Harvard’s Updated Policies Change Nothing

For all the fanfare regarding Harvard’s shiny new antisemitism settlements, you would think something would actually change.

Instead, Harvard’s recent revisions to its Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying policies are a masterclass in optics over substance. These changes introduce no new protections, create unnecessary redundancies, and fail to address the actual problems they claim to solve. Instead of adding more nonsense language to webpages, Harvard should actually enforce its existing rules.

NDAB’s framework prohibits discrimination against 15 protected categories, from race to pregnancy to, critically, political beliefs. Since Zionism is a political belief, regardless of whether it is intrinsically tied to Judaism, it was already covered by the NDAB framework.

The NDAB policy’s Frequently Asked Question page has been revised to include an extensive section about Zionism, in which protections for Zionists are connected to religious protections on the grounds that “for many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity.” But this changes nothing. Zionists were already protected. Instead of improving clarity or enforcement, this reclassification injects unnecessary ambiguity into an already expansive policy.

The real issue on campus has never been a lack of protected categories; it has been the selective enforcement of existing rules. The NDAB framework already prohibited harassment and discrimination against students for their political views. If Harvard had truly wanted to address antisemitism, it would have enforced its own policies, not rebranded them.

The policy’s FAQs introduce another absurd restriction: forbidding accusations that an individual “supports genocide” or is a “terrorist sympathizer” when those accusations are solely based on a protected characteristic, including political beliefs.

Political beliefs can encompass anything from mild policy preferences to explicit calls for violence. Under this policy, labeling someone “pro-genocide” for supporting the war in Gaza could be deemed harassment — even though some argue the war itself is genocidal. But take it a step further: if someone openly advocates for the extermination of a people as a political stance, is it now a policy violation to state the obvious?

The contradiction is unavoidable. On a practical level, if individuals express sympathy for Hamas or celebrate the October 7th attack — as members of Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee have — pointing that out could be considered harassment. A policy meant to protect students from unfair accusations now risks shielding the indefensible.

The timing of these changes is no coincidence. Harvard settled two lawsuits accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students on the first full day of a Trump administration that had threatened to punish universities over alleged campus antisemitism.

Yet under its own policies, Harvard would likely find Trump himself guilty of both Islamophobia and antisemitism. His infamous “Muslim ban” and his claim that Jews who don’t support Israel are disloyal would run afoul of the very definitions the University has now embraced. The irony couldn’t be clearer: Harvard reshaped its policies to placate an administration that violates them routinely.

This was never about protecting students. It was a strategic maneuver designed to neutralize legal and political threats.

Jewish students, myself included, have faced real hostility. Repeated calls to “globalize the intifada” are not just offensive but, to many, carry an implicit threat of violence. Last semester, students at Harvard Jews for Palestine protested outside Hillel, chanting “Zionists not welcome here.” Such conduct is clearly exclusionary; whether it meets Harvard’s threshold for harassment is a debate that ought to be had by the administration.

Yet rather than enforcing its existing policies to crack down on this behavior, Harvard has opted for a purely symbolic revision—one that neither strengthens protections nor ensures their fair application.

These changes solve nothing. They clarify nothing. And they protect students no more effectively than the rules that were already in place.

Harvard should stop rewriting policies for the sake of appearances and start enforcing the ones it already has.

Isaac R. Mansell ‘26, a Crimson Editorial Editor, is a Statistics concentrator in Kirkland House.