update deskSchools & Higher Education

Harvard employee emails student, seeks ‘debate’ on 9/11 conspiracy theories

Financial and systems coordinator Gustavo Espada wrote: “I hate Israel and Zionism with a passion.”

Harvard University Memorial Hall, home of Sanders Theatre. Credit: Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons.
Harvard University Memorial Hall, home of Sanders Theatre. Credit: Chensiyuan via Wikimedia Commons.

Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard University student who has filed a lawsuit with other students against the academic institution, says that he received antisemitic harassment from a Harvard employee.

Gustavo Espada, a 1996 graduate who works as the financial and systems coordinator for Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, sent Kestenbaum an email on Jan. 25 with an invitation to debate the “Israeli role in 9/11.”

Espada wrote, “I invite you to debate me today at the Cambridge Street overpass 12-1, don’t miss it!” He warned that failure to attend would result in “a puppet or potted plant to represent you!”

The systems coordinator wrote a postscript, stating, “Stop saying I hate Jews unless that is something you want. I hate Israel and Zionism with a passion, and you know full well they are two different things.”

Kestenbaum told The Daily Wire, “It would stand to reason that someone this hateful would have attended, and continue to work, at Harvard.”

He added that the school “has yet to introduce or enforce a concrete plan of action pertaining to their dismantling of antisemitism on campus.”

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