Thank you, Rep. Stefanik. (I never thought I would be saying that.)

Is the Crim ever going to get around to reporting that Rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting scholar at Harvard's Divinity School and an emeritus rabbi of Sinai Temple, announced Thursday that he was resigning from Harvard's Antisemitism Advisory Group over frustrations with the "evil" ideology that he said has a "grip" on far too many of Harvard's students and faculty members?

“Without rehashing all of the obvious reasons that have been endlessly adumbrated online, and with great respect for the members of the committee, the short explanation is that both events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped,” Rabbi Wolpe wrote.

Okay, I will try again and maybe this will get through. Nancy, the Crimson did do a story Wolpe. I tried entering a comment there, but so far it has not been cleared. I tried here as well earlier. I will try again now.

The Crimson story left out what seems to me the key part of Wolpe's statement. This one:

“Both events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped… The system at Harvard along with the ideology that grips far too many of the students and faculty, the ideology that works only along axes of oppression and places Jews as oppressors and therefore intrinsically evil, is itself evil.”

In other words, the ideology referred to here is the one relentlessly fostered and enforced via the DEI bureaucratic cancer. It is the ideology of critical theory with, specifically, its ham-fisted and laughable intersectional hierarchy that divides the nation into oppressed and oppressor groups based solely on skin color or ethnic group characteristics and entirely divorced from actual actions and thoughts of the individual. The deep flaw or contradiction in this has been revealed now, which is that Jews wind up on the oppressor side of the scale even though they clearly have also been oppressed at times. Hence this antisemitism crisis is breaking the whole rickety structure down. This bogus intellectual system is a cancer in that it has spread from an administrative unit or units into the entire system of thinking allowed at Harvard. It MUST BE UPROOTED.

I agree. The Crim eventually reported on Rabbi Wolpe's withdrawal from Harvard’s advisory board, a good long time after the story had been carried by many other media who did a far better job of it, and some time after I left a comment asking if they were ever going to get around to it. The Rabbi’s passage you cite but the Crim elided is indeed his most telling.

Yes, DEI is very much at the root of the most perverse aspects of student reaction the Hamas atrocities. Heather MacDonald has an excellent op-ed on that point in the WSJ. I have tried to cite to Heather’s column several times, but the Crim won’t let it through.

The point was made that if it's OK and free speech to demonstrate against Jews, is it also OK against Muslims or Black's or any other group? I doubt the University would tolerate that.

They’re demonstrating against Zionists who are committing genocide against Palestinians. Maybe as a Jew don’t support the genocidal nationalistic ideology of Zionism??

As shown time and again, antizionism is just the new avatar of antisemitism.

The government of Israel can be criticized, and the first to do it are Israelis. But calls for the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of Jews are antisemitic as shown in the definition of the International Holocaust Memorial Alliance, adopted by many countries, is antisemitic.

Patricia, the term 'anti-Semites' at times meant European Jews and didn't apply to any Arabs until Zionist settlements reached Palestine. All firebrand Zionist Jews were E European and profoundly estranged from Judaism. Zionism was popular in Protestant societies decades before it was popular among Jews. Zionism has never been a Jewish-majority movement.

Can you provide a link to students calling for destruction of Israel?

This is the meaning of From the river to the sea... Or maybe you should take a lesson in geography?

That is not the meaning, you illiterate moron.

It is. I guess geography isn't your forte. OTH you only know how to insult.

Do you demonstrate against the colonization of North Africa, Persia, Arabia and Indonesia?

Your university deserves this inquiry. Very sad but very true.

For years I've heard that speech is violence. Now it doesn't seem to matter.

This Congressional investigation, together with yesterday’s White House condemnation of President Gay’s performance, further raises the chances that Harvard’s federal funding may be at risk for its repeated and continuing violation of Title VI, which requires schools receiving such funding to protect their students from racially motivated threats. “Academic free speech” and “context” cannot render anodyne calls for the mass murder of a race that put members of that race on the Harvard campus in reasonable fear for their lives. Exactly what does the Harvard administration plan to do if and when the House Committee on Education and the Workforce concludes after investigating that the University is in continuing violation of Title VI? So far, Massachusetts Hall has offered nothing but defiance slathered with woke palaver.

Yesterday White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates issued this statement denouncing Gay’s bizarre claim that whether antisemitic calls for genocide violated Harvard’s code of conduct depended on “context”:

Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country. Any statements that advocate for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting – and we should all stand firmly against them, on the side of human dignity and the most basic values that unite us as Americans.

Once again: President Gay is in way over her head, and Harvard is in full existential crisis. It’s astounding that the Corporation does not recognize these obvious facts, and has actually remained silent in the face of the University president’s errant and humiliating behavior, which threaten the very foundations of this institution. It is not just Claudine Gay who should resign. A new broom is needed to sweep out Loeb House as well as Massachusetts Hall.

In early 2021 Harvard’s Institute of Politics removed U.S. Representative Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) from its Senior Advisory Committee, as announced with much self-serving rhetoric in a letter penned by Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf. That decision was lauded by Harvard affiliates who had signed a hi dudgeon petition urging the IOP to sever ties with Stefanik for “improperly challenging” the congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory and “enabling violence” during the January 6 Capitol Hill riot. It appears that many Harvard associates felt good at the time about what happened.

Whether one agrees with her or not, Stefanik is a very formidable person and adversary, and humiliating such a person is not something that should be done lightly. Setting aside other considerations solely for the take of argument, it seems likely that in that Committee room Representative Stefanik felt a particular satisfaction in impaling the President of the University that had humiliated Stefanik with that removal.

But how likely is it that at this moment President Gay, the Corporation, the Overseers or anyone else in the Harvard administration is pleased in retrospect that the IOP took the action it did? Nor is that the only example of Harvard’s arrogant actions towards those it has treated with contempt returning in unpredicted but devastating fashion.

Though the mills of God grind slowly; Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all.

Academic free speech means speaking about things you have a recognized academic competence, recognized by one's peers and by publications in academic journals. It certainly doesn't cover call to kill Jews.

Free speech in the US constitution concerns only the government, not a private institution which has the right to regulate the speech of both its employees and its students!

Why is this even a debate? I'm all for free speech, but calls for genocide by students on campus, is bad news, regardless of the "context." That a HARVARD PRESIDENT thinks context matters in this case shows that a major leadership shakeup is long overdue.

About time. Swamp must be drained.

According to CNN, Penn’s Board of Trustees chair Scott Bok is expected to talk to the university’s president, Liz Magill ’88, about stepping down from her role as president either this evening or Friday.

See: https://www[dot]cnn[dot]com/2023/12/07/business/penn-emergency-meeting-liz-magill/index[dot]html

And Yale President Peter Salovey told the Yale Daily News today (Thursday) that calls for genocide of the Jewish people would violate Yale’s policies. Salovey’s response is more forceful than those of the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT, institutions now facing Congressional investigation into campus antisemitism.

See: https://yaledailynews[dot]com/blog/2023/12/07/salovey-breaks-with-peer-university-presidents-indirect-answers-updates-response-to-hypothetical-question-from-house-antisemitism-hearing/

On Wednesday morning, one day after the hearing, the YDN asked Salovey whether calls for the genocide of Jewish people violated the University’s policies on discrimination and harassment. Salovey initially responded by recommending that “everyone” read Yale’s conduct policies and saying that he planned to watch the hearing in full before answering the News’ question in full.

Salovey has since called such speech “harassing, intimidating, and discriminatory,” per a statement shared with the News around 1 p.m. on Thursday. He also said that he would “certainly expect” individuals culpable of such speech to be held accountable in accordance with the University’s policies against discrimination and harassment.

“In my opinion, if an individual stood on our campus and urged the committing of mass murder of Jews, it would have no intellectual or academic value, and is frankly hateful and worthless,” Salovey wrote. “The very idea of it is something I find outrageous, vile, and abhorrent. Such an act, in my view, would be harassing, intimidating, and discriminatory, so I would certainly expect that person to be held accountable under our policies prohibiting such conduct.”

It’s rather hard to believe that there is not serious turmoil among many Harvard associates and donors after President Gay’s disastrous Washington performance. Has anyone at the Crim bothered to ask?

The anti-Semitism is okay, dead-naming is a bridge too far.

Claudine Gay should resign. Nothing good will come from continuing this spectacle.

Next up on How to Win Friends and Earn the Love and Respect of the World, a master class in sho—er, statesmanship by Elise Stefanik ‘06.

But first, a word from our sponsors, who will demand my resignation if I don’t do exactly as they say!

Who will demand your resignation if you don’t do exactly as they say?

That’s exactly what Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf did in removing U.S. Representative Elise M. Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) from the IOP Senior Advisory Committee.

What a corrupt and inept congress,

How is launching an investigation into anti-Semitism at Harvard a sign of corruption? Sincere question, because I don't see it.

When you can't argue the point, bring out the ad hominem attack.

Given the antisemitism at Harvard, the Congress does exactly what should be done.

As it turns out, "conservatives" really do love censorship and cancel culture when someone criticizes their precious Israel! Soon enough, even breathing will be considered "antisemitic" by these anti-speech loons.

Protip: one major reason the younger generation is turning away from Israel en masse is your over the top kneejerk crackdowns on free speech. "If you say something mean about Israel, you deserve to have your life ruined!" doesn't play well with most thinking people.

It's increasingly starting to look like antisemitism simply means "You can't criticize Jews or Israel because we're special and you're not" to these people. That will not end well.

Oh? Young people are turning against Israel because they do not like "crackdowns on free speech." Since when has this current generation shown such loyalty to the principles of free speech? In between their calls for all kinds of speakers to be canceled, students shouted down, mobs to assemble? You really can't be serious.

Does she approve of what they found in the schools?

We must resist the ever shifting definition of antisemitism. It used to mean hatred of Jews, but now we are seeing efforts to politicize the word in which even one who has no hatred at all toward Jews may be considered antisemitic. This includes labeling people antisemitic who simply want a Palestinian state next to an Israeli state (two state solution) and for both countries to live in peace, as this runs afoul of 'Zionism' or a religious belief that all of the land of historical Judea belongs to only Jews.

How did we get to a point in which different political or religious views on what should happen to the land in Israel and the former territory of Palestine translate into hatred of Jews? And why can't pursuing a peaceful two-state solution be free from needless antisemitic labeling? After all, hatred of ANYONE is what we should be most concerned about, not forcing a particular political or religious point of view on other people.

The new antisemitism hides behind the term antizionism. The classical antisemite didn't want the Jews to live. The new one, hiding behind the term antizionism refuses this right to the Jewish state.

Same poisoned wine, new bottles.

As to a Palestinian state, this was refused time and again by the Palestinian leadership itself: the Oslo accord became the Intifada; then after the withdrawal from Gaza, the Gazans elected Hamas. The truth is that they don't want another state, they want the destruction of Israel.

I will also add the following: in 1967, the West bank was Jordanian and Gaza Egyptian. Moreover the West Bank was disputed territory.

So the solution must involve these two countries.

Who you to decide the definition of "antisemitism"? That's up to Jewish people, just like defining homophobia is up to gay people etc...

This is the party who are home to anti semites, and refuse to pass funding for israel until they get the irs defunded. She is just trying to distract that congress cant actually get anything effective done. Seriously a republican investigating anti semtism? look at the voting record of every anti semitic attack in the US over the past 50 years.

Actually as a Jew I see antisemitism in the Democrat party. Not in the Republican party at all.