Harvard went easy on students for antisemitic conduct, House committee finds

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Harvard University failed to crack down hard enough on students for antisemitic conduct that violated the Ivy League school's own policies, according to the House Education and the Workforce Committee, which has been investigating anti-Israel demonstrations that gripped American college campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.

Harvard brought disciplinary cases against 68 students related to an April 24 to May 14 campus encampment, according to documents obtained by the committee. Of those 68, none are currently suspended, 52 remain in "good standing," 15 are not in good standing due to disciplinary probation, and one is on leave.

The committee said it believes Harvard is in violation of Title VI, which forbids "a hostile environment based on race, color, or national origin."

"Harvard failed, end of story," Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "These administrators failed their Jewish students and faculty, they failed to make it clear that antisemitism will not be tolerated, and in this case, Harvard may have failed to fulfill its legal responsibilities to protect students from a hostile environment. The only thing administrators accomplished is appeasing radical students who have almost certainly returned to campus emboldened and ready to repeat the spring semester’s chaos. Harvard must change course immediately."

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People march past Harvard Yard on the way to Harvard Square during this school year's first anti-Israel demonstration on Sept. 6, 2024. (John Tlumacki/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

According to a summary of its findings provided to Fox News Digital, "Harvard investigated and documented student violations of its policies, some of which were deemed to warrant semesters-long suspensions, but ultimately failed to enforce its own rules and impose meaningful discipline."

The committee added that discipline "would have been consistent with the Harvard Corporation’s pronouncement that ‘calls for violence’ and academic disruptions would ‘not be tolerated,’" asserting that "[t]he records, however, reveal that Harvard failed to fulfill this commitment and has permitted students to engage in such conduct with no real consequences." 

Between Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking hundreds of hostages into the Gaza Strip, and April 24, 2024, when an anti-Israel encampment formed on the university's campus, "Harvard failed to impose any formal discipline on any students," the committee said in the summary of its findings. 

Before the encampment was erected, the committee said, "Harvard only referred 12 students for discipline for conduct related to two antisemitic incidents: the November 16-17, 2023, occupation of University Hall and the disruption of classes with bullhorns and antisemitic chants on November 29, 2023." The committee added that no students received formal discipline for these incidents and "all remain in good standing." 

"Harvard has also failed to hold student groups accountable for antisemitic conduct. On September 10, the Harvard Crimson reported that Harvard lifted the April 22 suspension of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC)," the committee wrote, noting that this makes the group eligible for school funding. "This reversal comes despite the role of PSC and its membership in organizing the unlawful Harvard encampment through the unrecognized group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP)."

An anti-Israel agitator hangs a Palestinian flag in the encampment in Harvard Yard on May 7, 2024. (Lane Turner/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The Crimson reported that while PSC itself was not listed as an encampment organizer, many of its members are part of HOOP, and the two groups work together to coordinate their Instagram posts.

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The committee noted that Harvard College’s Administrative Board downgraded the sanctions of 35 students it initially voted to place on disciplinary probation from a period of six months or longer to periods of less than two months. 

"This diminishment meant that none of these students initially slated for longer probation periods remained on probation at the start of the fall 2024 semester," their report says. 

The board "initially voted to suspend five students for a year or more for encampment-related conduct violations, but then downgraded their sanctions to probation of no more than a semester," the committee said, arguing that those students "therefore appear to have faced no consequential discipline."

Hundreds of graduates walked out of the 2024 commencement in Harvard Yard in an anti-Israel orchestrated protest on May 23, 2024. (Craig F. Walker/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Documents obtained by the committee show that every Harvard College student who appealed their encampment-related disciplinary sanctions had their sanctions downgraded.

The report cites how one student who participated in the encampment and raised a Palestinian flag over University Hall, which sits on Harvard Yard, "was initially informed he would receive a three-semester suspension." But that three-semester suspension was downgraded to probation until Dec. 20, 2024. The committee found four other students who participated in the encampment were each initially told they would be required to withdraw for two terms, but each of these suspensions was downgraded "to the significantly weaker penalty of probation" until Oct. 21, 2024.

The committee found that Harvard did not implement any consequences for students who occupied University Hall and who interrupted classes with bullhorns and antisemitic chants. 

Nine Harvard students who occupied University Hall on Nov. 16-17, 2023, "received no formal disciplinary consequences at all" despite having "disrupted normal business operations by making loud noises and chanting, with the goal of occupying the building," the committee said. Instead, they received informal "admonishments," which, according to Harvard, are "not considered a formal disciplinary action." 

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The five Harvard students who interrupted economics and statistics classes with bullhorns and antisemitic chants, including "From the river to the sea" and "Globalize the intifada," on Nov. 29, 2023, received no formal disciplinary consequences, the committee wrote, "and were instead only ‘admonished.'" Two of those students had also been involved in the occupation of University Hall just weeks before.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Harvard for comment.