University presidents are hired to protect the brand, not Jewish students
The presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT testify before the House on Dec. 05, 2023 Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Barak Sella December 15, 2023
The presidents of Harvard, MIT and UPenn are probably not antisemites.
Despite their very public inability to say whether calling for the genocide of Jews would constitute a violation of school policies, they made clear in their opening speeches to Congress hours earlier that they are utterly opposed to antisemitism and are taking steps to combat the phenomenon.
As a student at Harvard, I can add that President Claudine Gay took immediate and personal action on a complaint I submitted against an administration worker suspected of antisemitism. She also established a committee for combating antisemitism and was one of the few university presidents to condemn the chant “from the river to the sea.”
So how does it happen that she, along with the women leading MIT and UPenn, couldn’t unequivocally answer such a simple question?
It’s pretty simple. A university president’s primary role is to preserve the institution’s economic value and power. They are not the guardians of American democracy. They are bureaucrats with exorbitant salaries appointed to maintain their endowments.
Legal fears lead to unsatisfactory answers
Before Wednesday’s congressional hearing, the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation against the universities into whether or not they violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
The investigation is examining whether the institutions allowed antisemitic events to take place, thus violating the law. The congressional hearing does not directly affect the investigation. But it is conducted under oath, and testimony given there could have potential legal consequences.
When testifying, the presidents could’ve taken one of two approaches: use the stage for resonant public statements or put their heads down and just try to get through it in one piece.
The three presidents picked the latter, reciting coordinated messages approved by their legal teams. The tactic failed miserably. And after the hearing, another investigation was announced by the House Education and the Workforce Committee.
They don’t understand antisemitism
The three presidents responded in the negative to the question of whether they define themselves as experts on antisemitism. But nobody asked them to write a thesis on the history of the persecution of the Jews. You don’t need to be an expert on antisemitism, racism or any other kind of discrimination to stand up against it.
The problem is that even in elite universities, understanding of the topic is scant. For example, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government requires students to take a mandatory course on the history of racism in the United States. Throughout the year, there are numerous lectures and events on all types of discrimination in the world — except antisemitism. The study of antisemitism has been exiled to Jewish studies departments, which are marginal in the departmental hierarchy.
Out of 19,481 courses offered at Harvard, there are 100 courses on racism and only three mention antisemitism. None of them deal with antisemitism specifically, but only in the context of “Nazi medicine” or “19th-century music.” It’s like learning about slavery, but only in the context of the history of cotton production in the South.
The entrenchment of progressive ideology
Universities claim to defend free speech and protect academic freedom. But in reality, elite universities have turned into closed systems which promote dichotomous thinking.
The 1960s were an era of transformation in campus cultures, leading to the rise of various progressive ideologies at American universities. The Civil Rights Movement, and the widespread protests against the Vietnam War, led to increased awareness and critique of colonial practices. Post-colonial academic studies emerged in the 1970s and ’80s, which were pivotal in building the basis for the now-widespread anti-colonialist (and sometimes anti-American) lines of thinking that simplistically divide the world into oppressors and oppressed.
In this equation, the Jews, who are perceived white, have lost their minority status and ability to ever be seen as a victim. David Wolpe, one of the most prominent rabbis in the U.S. and a Harvard research fellow, announced his resignation from the university committee for combating antisemitism for precisely this reason.
He criticized “the ideology that grips far too many of the students and faculty” and emphasized that “ignoring Jewish suffering is evil. Belittling or denying the Jewish experience, including unspeakable atrocities, is a vast and continuing catastrophe. Denying Israel the self-determination as a Jewish nation accorded unthinkingly to others is endemic, and evil.”
A corrupt system with a broken leadership
We’re used to thinking of universities as institutions dedicated to the search for truth and expansion of knowledge. But elite universities, registered as nonprofits and enjoying substantial tax benefits, have become money-making machines.
Harvard has the largest university endowment in the world – $50.9 billion. One study predicts that by 2050, the Ivy League endowments will be worth over a trillion dollars. A president will be deemed successful if the endowment and donations have increased at the end of their tenure, not by their moral stances. That’s why we expect leadership but get reactive behavior that only tries to put out fires.
This isn’t an error — this is the model working as it is designed. Brave leadership happens only in places where ethical considerations are superior to financial ones. And that’s why we’ve already seen corrections from all three presidents, and Magill’s resignation.
Reactive leaders only take action in response to backlash. The MIT and Harvard boards issued statements of support for President Kornbluth and Gay. Still, as Bill Ackman, the Harvard graduate billionaire, tweeted: “Boards of corporations are always unanimously in support of their CEOs until the moment before they fire them, as showing any signs of qualified support guarantees that the CEO is doomed.”
Many universities, like Stanford or Michigan, have issued preliminary declarations stating that they condemn calls for genocide to preempt the inevitable storm. Once they smell blood, the fight against campus antisemitism will likely continue making headlines, especially when the Republicans see this as easy prey and a weakness of the liberal elites.
This will be just another chapter of the unending culture wars. Once it was abortions or gender education, now it’s college antisemitism. The problem is that when Jews are in the middle, it never ends well for any of us.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
