Republicans on the Committee on Education and Workforce demanded answers from Harvard University on Monday about whether the school has created a hostile environment for Jews.
Reps. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), chair of the committee, and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), chair of the House Republican Leadership, wrote to Harvard president Alan Garber about potential violations of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discriminating on the basis of race, color and national origin.
“Harvard does not appear to have disciplined, and instead has rewarded, two students who assaulted an Israeli Jewish student who was filming a ‘die-in’ protest on Oct. 18, 2023,” they wrote.
“To make matters worse, in April of this year, one of the attackers received a $65,000 fellowship through the Harvard Law Review to work at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that even the Biden-Harris administration disavowed due to its virulent antisemitism,” they said.
Other issues the congressmen highlight include whether Harvard has made a decision to terminate its relationship with Birzeit University in Ramallah, whose student body the lawmakers say “overwhelmingly supports Hamas,” and if Harvard is backsliding on its agreement to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred.
The letter concludes with a list of demands for documents and communications from Harvard for the university to produce by Oct. 13.
