Harvard students, faculty hope for end to anti-Semitism row

Students and professors at Harvard are feeling bruised but hoping for a return to calm after claims of anti-Semitism linked to fury over the war in Gaza ripped through the famous institution and other elite US universities.

The historic campus in the heart of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was roiled in October by pro-Palestinian marches. The anger mirrored widespread concern among young, liberal American students over the civilian costs of Israel’s war against Hamas after the militant group launched a bloody, surprise attack on October 7.

However, the protests quickly sparked alarm that anti-Semitism was flourishing in Harvard and other Ivy League universities, which host top students from around the world.

Protestors’ banners called for a ceasefire in the bloody conflict gripping Gaza and proclaimed that accusing Israel of genocide is not the same as anti-Semitism.

At the row’s peak, Harvard president Claudine Gay, a 53-year-old political science professor with Haitian roots who is the first Black leader in the institution’s 368 year history, came under intense pressure to resign.

The heated disagreements — stoked by criticism from Congress and the national media — have now died down, but the impact of the row has left students and faculty contacted by AFP largely reluctant to express much of an opinion at all.

Marisa Gann, 19, a student from Mississippi, didn’t want to elaborate on whether Gay should have stepped down.

“Who should resign, who should not resign? I’m not going to express an opinion on that at all, because I don’t feel like I’m entitled to,” she said, adding that her hope now was that the negative attention on Harvard would subside.

– ‘Culture changes’ –

Political science professor Ryan Enos, one of 700 faculty members who signed a letter supporting Gay, said that he was angered by those in Israel and Congress who were “politicizing these issues.”

“We don’t need people using that situation opportunistically to try to promote their own view of who’s right and who’s wrong,” he told AFP.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, a close US ally, has claimed that a “whopping wave of anti-Semitism” has “seeped onto university campuses.”

And Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, has described it as a “cancer.”

After Gay’s position was secured, Jewish student group Hillel’s Harvard branch told AFP that “the most important thing for Jewish students at Harvard… is that the culture changes” and that anti-Semitism is stopped “whenever and wherever it occurs.”

“We look forward to continuing to work with president Gay and other senior Harvard administrators on educational programs and enforcing policies to protect Jewish students,” it said.

Earlier this week, a conservative Jewish group called the Jewish National Project drove a billboard truck around Harvard emblazoned with messages accusing Gay of anti-Semitism and being a “national disgrace.”

But Tad Elmer, a local retiree, said that universities should avoid becoming politicized.

“I don’t see why they feel the need to give opinions on world affairs,” said the man in his 70s. “Let’s educate people.”