Harvard’s federal funding bonanza may be at risk. Good.
Both the U.S. government and Harvard University separately announced that $9 billion in federal funding is in jeopardy as the government looks into antisemitism at Harvard. Below is a portion of an email that immediately shot out of the office of Harvard’s president:
"Earlier today, the federal government’s task force to combat antisemitism issued a letter putting at risk almost $9 billion in support of research at Harvard and other institutions, including hospitals in our community. If this funding is stopped, it will halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation.
"The government has informed us that they are considering this action because they are concerned that the University has not fulfilled its obligations to curb and combat antisemitic harassment. We fully embrace the important goal of combatting antisemitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry. Urgent action and deep resolve are needed to address this serious problem that is growing across America and around the world. It is present on our campus. I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president, and I know how damaging it can be to a student who has come to learn and make friends at a college or university.
"For the past fifteen months, we have devoted considerable effort to addressing antisemitism. We have strengthened our rules and our approach to disciplining those who violate them. We have enhanced training and education on antisemitism across our campus and introduced measures to support our Jewish community and ensure student safety and security. We have launched programs to promote civil dialogue and respectful disagreement inside and outside the classroom. We have adopted many other reforms, and we will continue to combat antisemitism and to foster a campus culture that includes and supports every member of our community.
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"Much is at stake here. In longstanding partnership with the federal government, we have launched and nurtured pathbreaking research that has made countless people healthier and safer, more curious and more knowledgeable, improving their lives, their communities, and our world. But we are not perfect. Antisemitism is a critical problem that we must and will continue to address. As an institution and as a community, we acknowledge our shortcomings, pursue needed change, and build stronger bonds that enable all to thrive. Our commitment to these ends—and to the teaching and research at the heart of our University—will not waver."
As I have written previously, Harvard ultimately has two options. The first is to allow open criticism of Jews and every other minority group—blacks, Hispanics, gays, trans, etc. The alternative is to aggressively enforce zero tolerance for attacks against any group, including Jews. The problem Harvard has is that it is a hostage to its own deranged thinking. In the Marxist, “intersectional” way of looking at the world, there are oppressors and oppressed. The basic idea that blacks are oppressed ignores extremely wealthy and successful people like Morgan Freeman and Tiger Woods. The oppressor motif of whites and Jews is so strong that Jewish women brutally raped and murdered by Hamas could generate no sympathy on campus. The day after the pogrom, no less than 31 university-recognized organizations went on a blitz to blame Israel for what happened to its citizens. Harvard will ruthlessly protect any sacred class like fat, trans, gay, disabled or black. Woe to the sophomore who writes on an open Facebook page that fat students should be deployed to build a new wall around Harvard Yard. He would come back to his room to find it empty of his belongings and a one-way bus ticket home with his name on it. Harvard allowed for “intifada revolution” and “from the river to the sea” because attacking Jews and wishing a genocide upon Israelis is simply keeping with the officially approved mantra of white Jews and Israelis oppress brown murdering Hamas terrorists.
I would hope that the U.S. would either cease or significantly curtail federal funding to Harvard. Harvard does not want to fully address antisemitism because at the end of the day, the university and its Jewish president are fully onboard with Jews as white oppressors who do not deserve the full protection that say blacks or trans would receive under similar threat. They can never square their moral circle, and all of the seminars and increased awareness will accomplish nothing. The school conveniently booted Hamas-loving students before graduation and let them back in after the heavy donors had gone home. The university under Claudine Gay told a Chabad rabbi not to keep his Chanukah menorah unattended in the Yard, as it would most likely be defaced. The university’s leadership is spineless, and only cutting off federal and donor money may get them to boot students who harass Jews rather than organize five more seminars on theories of antisemitism since 1689.
When I was a freshman, my dorm was located immediately across from the Harvard Memorial Church. My freshman advisor was actually Rev. Peter Gomes, who gave the benediction at Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration. There was a room off to the side of the church that was a memorial to Harvard graduates who gave their lives in all of America’s wars. It’s a very sobering experience to be in that room, to realize that Harvard trained and cherished warriors who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. I look at today’s Harvard cowards and realize what an embarrassment they are to those memorialized in that room.
As Harvard uses its endowment to generate cash and would never dip into the $52 billion it has, the feds should cut a couple billion in grant money. While I am not enthralled with the idea of defunded professors with time on their hands vandalizing Teslas or selling drugs in Harvard Square, the only things that the Harvard Corporation understands are money and power. Putting a dent in the Harvard budget might—might—make the university actually make the protection of Jewish and Israeli students a real priority to the point of kicking out lunatic students in violation of Harvard’s own rules. I have read firsthand accounts of Jewish students and they experienced hatred that we in the mid-1980s would never have imagined could occur on campus. Harvard needs to be made an example and needs to be punished for its demented on-and-off First Amendment protections. I would donate to Hamas before I would give a penny to Harvard. Then again, they're on the same side.
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