A “broad coalition” of college officials is releasing a statement supporting Israel and opposing the “evil” of Hamas after several universities sparked outrage for failing to immediately condemn the terror attacks.
“We are horrified and sickened by the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas,” reads the statement obtained by Axios.
“Murdering innocent civilians, including babies and children, raping women and taking the elderly as hostages are not the actions of political disagreement, but the actions of hate and terrorism.
“The basis of all universities is a pursuit of truth and it is times like these that require moral clarity,” it continues.
“Like the fight against ISIS, the fight against Hamas is a fight against evil.
“We, the presidents and chancellors of universities and colleges across the United States of America and the world stand with Israel, with the Palestinians who suffer under Hamas’ cruel rule in Gaza and with all people of moral conscience.”
It was signed by university officials at the University of Notre Dame, Yeshiva University, Baylor University and SUNY and CUNY officials, according to Axios.
Additionally, the presidents of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and the United Negro College Fund signed on to the message.
“We are building a broad coalition that can articulate inhumanity when we see it,” Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, told Axios.
“This is the greatest atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and one of the most significant attacks of international terrorism.”
The statement comes as colleges across the country face backlash for their failure to condemn Hamas.
At Kingsborough Community College in New York City, the chair of the business department called out his president in an open letter for not showing Jewish students the same support she showed black students after the death of George Floyd and Asian students amid a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans.
Meanwhile, Jon Huntsman — the former governor of Utah who served as ambassador to China — announced last week that his family will no longer donate to the University of Pennsylvania over its “silence” to the attack by Hamas against Israel last weekend.
“Moral relativism has fueled the university’s race to the bottom and sadly now has reached a point where remaining impartial is no longer an option,” he wrote to Magill on Friday night.
Huntsman blasted the school’s “silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel,” which he termed “a new low.”
He said that “the only response should be outright condemnation.
Apollo Management CEO Marc Rowan – a graduate of Wharton who along with his wife donated $50 million to the business school in 2018 – also demanded UPenn President Liz Magill and Scott Bok, chair of the board of trustees, step down.
At Harvard University, officials are under fire for their failure to condemn a statement signed by more than 30 student organizations, which held Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence.
After it was published, former university president Larry Summers demanded that Harvard administrators condemn the statement signed by the student organizations.
“Why can’t we find anything approaching the moral clarity of Harvard statements after George Floyd’s death or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when terrorists kill, rape, and take hostage hundreds of Israelis attending a music festival?” he asked.
Bill Ackman, the founder of multibillion-dollar hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, also demanded that Harvard administrators release a list of the names of students whose groups co-signed the letter.
He enlisted the support of at least a dozen business executives who vowed to deny employment opportunities to the students whose groups were signatories to the letter.
On Monday, the Wexner Foundation wrote to Harvard’s board “formally ending its financial support” of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
“We are stunned and sickened by the dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stance against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians,” wrote the leadership of the nonprofit started by Victoria’s Secret founder Leslie Wexner and his wife Abigail.
It left Israeli students feeling “abandoned” at the school — especially when 34 student groups quickly issued a statement “holding Israel entirely responsible for the violent terror attack on its own citizens,” stated the letter shared by StopAntisemitism.