The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into Harvard University on Tuesday to determine whether the university has fulfilled its legal obligation to respond to the increase in antisemitic incidents reported in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack.
The investigation was prompted by a complaint that alleged Harvard “discriminated against students on the basis of their national origin (shared Jewish ancestry and/or Israeli) when it failed to respond appropriately to reports of incidents of harassment,” according to a letter from the Department of Education obtained by the Boston Globe.
While the Office of Civil Rights does not typically disclose which specific complaints prompted an investigation, there have been several high-profile incidents of antisemitism at Harvard and other Ivy league universities in recent weeks.
In October, an Israeli student at Harvard Business School was physically accosted as he attempted to film a pro-Palestinian “die-in” demonstration. The student said “don’t grab me” and “don’t touch my neck” as protesters surrounded him.
Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, a second-year student at Harvard Divinity School who touched the Israeli student, was relieved of his supervisor position for undergraduates following the incident.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman sent an open letter to Harvard president Claudine Gay earlier this month which cited the confrontation at the “die-in” and urged her to take action to protect Jewish students.
“Jewish students are being bullied, physically intimidated, spat on, and in several widely-disseminated videos of one such incident, physically assaulted,” Mr. Ackman wrote. “On-campus protesters on the Widener Library steps and elsewhere shout, ‘Intifada! Intifada! Intifada! From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall be Free!’”
Harvard President Claudine Gay released a statement about “combatting antisemitism” on November 9.
“I affirm our commitment to protecting all members of our community from harassment and marginalization, and our commitment to meeting antisemitism head-on, with the determination it demands,” Gay said. “Let me reiterate what I and other Harvard leaders have said previously: Antisemitism has no place at Harvard.”
The university vowed to cooperate with the investigation in a statement issued Wednesday.
“We support the work of the Office for Civil Rights to ensure students’ rights to access educational programs are safeguarded and will work with the office to address their questions,” the university said in a statement.
The DOE has also opened investigations into Columbia University, Cornell University, Wellesley College, and the University of Pennsylvania this month over “discrimination involving shared ancestry” under Title VI.
Just days after the Hamas attack, a 19-year-old Columbia student was arrested for allegedly assaulting an Israeli student who was trying to prevent the suspect from tearing down posters of Israeli hostages. At Cornell, a 21-year-old student was arrested for allegedly threatening to murder and rape his Jewish classmates on an anonymous online message board.