Harvard and President Gay Must Not Yield
We urge you: Do not allow Congress to tell the story of this moment on campus. We are students at Harvard, and this is our campus. We have witnessed, firsthand, the vitriol of these past few months, and we would like to set the record straight.
Last week, before the world, Republican members of Congress used the grave problem of antisemitism as a cudgel against higher education.
On a House committee’s invitation, University President Claudine Gay testified about antisemitism on college campuses alongside the presidents of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania.
If you tuned into the hearing and wondered why the first thing you heard was a talking point about trans athletes, you’re not alone. In name, the hearing was about students fearing for their safety; in practice, it was a pretext for opportunistic politicians to launch an all-out assault on higher education.
Now, these bad-faith actors have their sights on Gay’s job. Over a decontextualized clip just over a minute long, they demand her resignation.
We unequivocally reject the calls for Gay to resign. And we urge you: Do not allow Congress to tell the story of this moment on campus. We are students at Harvard, and this is our campus. We have witnessed, firsthand, the vitriol of these past few months, and we would like to set the record straight.
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Antisemitism is a real, significant problem at Harvard and across the United States. From reprehensible posts on anonymous campus social media, to the more than tripling of hate crimes against Jewish people in New York City from last October to this one, the problem of antisemitism demands nuanced and serious discussion.
Instead, it’s been treated as a prop in political theater. Recent rhetoric has portrayed non-Jewish Harvard students — and Harvard more broadly — as deeply antisemitic.
We reject this careless characterization. We believe the vast majority of our peers do not harbor hate toward Jewish people.
This perspective has been obscured as Congress has portrayed Jewish and pro-Palestinian students as diametrically opposed monoliths with uniform sets of beliefs and emotions. In reality, our campus is home to Jewish students who advocate for a free Palestine, Arab students who endorse a Jewish right to self-determination, and many more individuals whose experiences have shaped complex, well-reasoned beliefs.
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In their lines of questioning, Republican members of Congress in particular neglected the diversity of our campus. So, too, did they largely neglect the actual issue at hand.
If the Republican representatives truly cared about addressing antisemitism on college campuses, they would not have squandered their precious five minutes each with questions on: a dearth of conservative faculty, diversity and inclusion initiatives, critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, or “foreign” students — just to name a few.
Nor would they echo antisemitic conspiracy theories or endorse candidates who praised Hitler, as a certain Harvard alumna from New York has done.
This particular alumna, apparently now convinced of the ills of antisemitism, gained a great deal of press for one line of questioning to Gay. “At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?” Rep. Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) asked — to which Gay twice responded, to widespread disappointment, that “it depends on the context.”
The wording of Stefanik’s question was technical: How should Harvard’s code of conduct be applied? In response, Gay provided a technical answer.
Gay’s response about context dependence may seem unsatisfying, but there is — equally unsatisfyingly — no University policy that unequivocally answers Stefanik’s question. These policies do warrant more robust discussion and clarification, but a truthful answer about their ambiguity does not merit such opprobrium.
Stefanik did not genuinely desire to learn about Harvard’s policies. She set a trap for Gay, equating language like “globalize the intifada” with express calls for genocide, though we believe the vast majority of our pro-Palestinian classmates who use it do not mean it this way. We should understand Gay’s bungled answer as resulting in part from the difficulty of responding to this insidious subtext.
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We condemn calls for genocide, as does President Gay — a point she made clear, if it wasn’t already, in a post-hearing statement.
While “globalize the intifada” is not straightforwardly a call for genocide — campus activists often intend it as a general symbol of Palestinian freedom — the fact remains that many Jewish students are hurt and disturbed by such language, given that the last intifada involved bus bombings, stabbings, and other violent attacks against Israeli civilians.
This chant inflames divisions in our campus discourse, and in turn, distracts from the aims of those who deploy it. We urge pro-Palestinian activists still using the phrase to leave it behind.
Free speech is the guiding principle of this Editorial Board. We believe, however, that the right to speak freely enjoins us to speak well. We encourage students to familiarize themselves with multiple perspectives on the meaning of their words to form more productive arguments.
At the same time, truly free speech requires that the University do better to protect speakers from serious, ongoing outside threats and intimidation.
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Gay’s initial failure, separate of the technical question, to morally condemn calls for genocide was a lapse in leadership — one she has since apologized for. But, no matter how viral, it was only one moment. It did not reflect a fundamental moral deficiency or a lack of commitment to combating antisemitism on campus.
This one blunder should absolutely not lead to Gay’s resignation.
Resigning over this trumped-up, politicized controversy would set a deeply damaging precedent that powerful people can bend higher education to their will. It already happened at the University of Pennsylvania, where President Elizabeth Magill resigned after similar outcry for similarly banal testimony.
At Penn, even more donors and politicians revolted. At Penn, alarmingly, Magill’s resignation followed shortly after a billionaire threatened to withdraw a roughly $100 million donation conditional on her replacement.
Harvard cannot be like Penn. A month ago, we criticized the University’s failure to protect students facing doxxing and harassment, saying that “Should Harvard fail to respond to this assault, it will announce to the world that, with enough money, with enough effort, the powerful can silence its students at will.”
Now, in the face of ferocious partisan attacks, we see Harvard on the verge of announcing to the world that, with enough money, with enough effort, the powerful can silence its students, its professors, and even its presidents at will.
For the good of free speech, of free inquiry, of a free democracy, Harvard — and Gay — must not yield.
This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.
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