Chair of the House Education Committee Virginia Foxx (R-NC) this week ordered Harvard University to turn over documentation of antisemitic incidents and its protocol for disciplining them, as well as data on its budget and funds from foreign sources.
In her now-fabled December 7, 2023 questioning of Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), inquired if Gay was aware that Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies had received $1.5 billion from foreign entities and governments over the past three years. Gay responded, “We receive funding from alumni from all over the world.” As to the amount, she demurred, “I don’t know if that’s the correct number, but that’s the number you shared.”
According to an October 13, 2023, Department of Education report, US universities and colleges received $22 billion from foreign entities, which, according to the accounting firm KPMG, more than 50% of them are authoritarian and antidemocratic Middle Eastern governments. The total donations to date come to $51 billion, meaning that close to half of the donations to American higher education come from Arab despots.
According to the Washington Examiner, over the past two years, Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania have reported receiving a total of $19,772,237 in donations from entities based in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, including contributions from the respective governments of both nations. This information has been compiled by the Department of Education. Under federal regulations, educational institutions must disclose any foreign donations exceeding $250,000 to the Department of Education.
LETTER TO HARVARD BIGWIGS
Chair Foxx on January 9 sent a letter to Penny Pritzker, Senior Fellow at the Harvard Corporation, and Dr. Alan Garber, Interim President of Harvard University, saying, “As you are aware, the Committee on Education and the Workforce is investigating Harvard University’s response to antisemitism and its failure to protect Jewish students. We have grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of Harvard’s response to the antisemitism on its campus.”
Foxx wrote: “There is evidence antisemitism has been pervasive at Harvard since well before the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack. A November 2022 report by the AMCHA Initiative, a nonprofit that documents antisemitism on college campuses, found Harvard had the highest rate of threats based on Jewish identity of the 109 campuses they surveyed.4 A March 2023 thesis titled “The Death of Discourse: Antisemitism at Harvard College” by Harvard student Sabrina Goldfischer found 62.5 percent of the Harvard students she interviewed had experienced antisemitism at Harvard or knew people who have, and 68.75 percent of them had censored themselves in academic or social settings because of their Judaism or ties to Israel.”
She then listed 9 incidents that she said constitute “a pattern of deeply troubling incidents and developments at the university.”
According to Foxx, “Harvard has demonstrated a clear double standard in how it has tolerated antisemitic harassment and intimidation, but acted to suppress and penalize expression it deemed problematic.”
She then demanded that “To assist the Committee in understanding the antisemitism at Harvard and the university’s response, please produce the following items no later than 5:00 PM EST on January 23, 2024, all reports of antisemitic acts or incidents and related documents and communications since January 1, 2021, including but not limited to all reports of antisemitic acts, incidents, or discrimination made to the following:
a. The Office of the President;
b. The Office of the General Counsel;
c. The Office of the Dean of Students at Harvard College (including the Office of
Residential Life and any college House) and each of Harvard’s graduate and
professional schools;
d. The Harvard Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, and similar
offices and programs within Harvard College, each of Harvard’s
graduate/professional schools, the Harvard Division of Continuing Education, and
Harvard Radcliffe Institute;
e. The Harvard University Police Department;
f. The Anonymous Reporting Hotline and any other hotlines, inboxes, or other
mechanisms that collect reports of bias, discrimination, and harassment;
g. Harvard Human Resources.
Foxx also ordered Harvard to furnish “Documents sufficient to show any Harvard disciplinary, academic, personnel, administrative, or other processes through which allegations of hate crimes, discrimination, bias, or harassment are responded to,” as well as “Documents sufficient to show Harvard’s policies and procedures that ensure and preserve access to safe and uninterrupted learning environments and respond to and address reported violations,” and a long list of additional documents detailing how each component of this Ivy League school has been acting to deter antisemitism.
