Harvard University established a newly formed antisemitism task force designed to identify the “root causes” of anti-Jewish sentiment on campus, but in doing so, appointed a professor who has been critical of Israel.
Interim Harvard president Alan Garber announced on Friday that the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism will be led by Derek Penslar, the university’s professor of Jewish history. In August, prior to the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, Penslar signed an open letter alongside nearly 2,900 signatories who at the time called Israel a “regime of apartheid” over its treatment of Palestinians.
“We, academics, clergy, and other public figures from Israel/Palestine and abroad, call attention to the direct link between Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary and its illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the August letter read.
It has since been replaced by two new petitions, none of which Penslar has signed. The latest petition, published in December, calls on President Joe Biden to help negotiate an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, facilitate a second prisoner-hostage exchange, and supply additional humanitarian aid to Gaza amid the Middle Eastern conflict.
Penslar was also one of the faculty to spearhead a December letter in support of former Harvard president Claudine Gay, following calls for her resignation after she failed to condemn the genocide of Jews at a House hearing on campus antisemitism. In the letter, over 700 faculty urged Harvard’s administration to keep Gay in her post. Gay was fired nearly a month later.
Raffaella Sadun, the university’s professor of business administration, will co-chair the antisemitism task force alongside Penslar.
Harvard also created a Presidential Task Force on Combating Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Bias in response to reports of antisemitic and Islamophobic acts, Garber announced.
“Reports of antisemitic and Islamophobic acts on our campus have grown,” he said without disclosing numbers, “and the sense of belonging among these groups has been undermined. We need to understand why and how that is happening—and what more we might do to prevent it.”
Both groups are tasked with “examining recent history and current manifestations of bias; identifying the root causes of and contributing factors to bias-based behaviors on campus; evaluating evidence regarding the characteristics and frequency of these behaviors; and recommending approaches to combat bias and to mitigate its impact on campus,” the interim president added.
The statement comes more than a week after six Harvard graduate and law students who are members of Students Against Antisemitism sued the Ivy League school for “severe and pervasive” antisemitic harassment since Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7. The lawsuit says the university “has become a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment” due to pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
“Mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty have marched by the hundreds through Harvard’s campus, shouting vile antisemitic slogans and calling for death to Jews and Israel,” the 77-page federal civil complaint reads. “Those mobs have occupied buildings, classrooms, libraries, student lounges, plazas, and study halls, often for days or weeks at a time, promoting violence against Jews and harassing and assaulting them on campus.”
Neither Harvard, Penslar, nor the antisemitism task force responded to requests for comment from National Review.