Education Department investigates claims of discrimination against Palestinian students at Harvard
The U.S. Department of Education said Tuesday it had opened an investigation into Harvard over whether it failed to protect Palestinian, Muslim and Arab students and their supporters from intimidation, threats and intimidation.
Harvard has been in turmoil for months over its response to the attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, which played a role in the eventual departure of the school's president, Claudine Gay. The Department of Education has already opened a separate investigation into Harvard following complaints of anti-Semitism.
The Muslim Legal Fund of America, who filed a civil rights complaint that led to the new investigation, said more than a dozen students had experienced harassment. Students were “threatened or called terrorists,” sometimes by fellow students, because they wore keffiyehs, a Palestinian scarf, said Christina A. Jump, an attorney for the group. Others were numbed and intimidated, but Harvard administrators dismissed the concerns, she said.
School administrators instead met with donors and alumni who “encouraged the intimidation,” said Chelsea Glover, another attorney on the case. The complaint, which the group's lawyers did not file, does not list donors or alumni, Ms. Jump said.
“Harvard's primary responsibility should be to its current students, not to wealthy donors and alumni with personal agendas that harm students who support Palestinian rights,” Ms. Glover said.
In a statement Tuesday evening, Harvard said it supports the work of the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights “to ensure that students' rights to access educational programs are safeguarded and that it will work with the agency to address their questions.” to answer.”
A spokesperson pointed to several actions the university has taken to protect doxxed students, including reaching out to those who have received online threats, engaging with local police and setting up a task force to combat Islamophobia.
In a open letter to campus in November, Harvard official Meredith Weenick wrote: “I want to assure you that we do not condone and will not ignore acts of intimidation or intimidation, or threats of violence.”
On the night of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, more than thirty student groups posted an open letter holding Israel “fully responsible.”
Students affiliated with these groups were defrauded, family members were threatened, and influential executives demanded students' names to prevent them from hiring. A truck with a digital billboard displayed students' names and photos declaring them “Harvard's Leading Anti-Semites.”
The campus and its students would continue to receive outsized attention, largely after Ms. Gay's appearance at a Congressional hearing on anti-Semitism. Criticism of her answers at that December hearing, accusations that she did not do enough to tackle anti-Semitism, and later accusations of plagiarism would lead to her downfall.
The opening of a Title VI investigation for discrimination involving “shared ancestry” by the Office for Civil Rights does not imply wrongdoing.
The government publicly announces the existence of its investigations, but typically does not disclose which specific claims it is investigating. Universities could lose federal funding due to civil rights violations.
A flurry of such complaints have been filed in recent months, often over allegations of failing to protect Jewish students, including at Harvard. More than five dozen investigations have been opened since October, mostly at colleges, but also at schools and school districts.
Anyone can file a civil rights complaint, including people or groups not affiliated with the campus. Several recent investigations into allegations of anti-Semitism have been opened, for example after complaints filed by Zachary Marschall, the editor-in-chief of Campus Reform, a conservative website.
This week, in addition to Harvard, the Office for Civil Rights opened Title VI investigations into four other universities: the University of South Florida, Indiana University, the New School and the University of Michigan.
The Office for Civil Rights said in November that it is investigating such complaints to “take aggressive action to address the alarming nationwide increase in reports of anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and other forms of discrimination and harassment” since the Hamas attack.
Ms. Jump, of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, said the civil rights complaint about anti-Semitism at Harvard did not compete with the latest complaint.
“The fact that there are two complaints against Harvard for failing to protect those of religious minorities shows that Harvard has failed across the board to take action to protect these students,” she said.