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Harvard University Announces New ‘Institutional Neutrality’ Policy, Vowing to Stay Out of Politics
Graduating students rise in support of 13 students not able to graduate because of their participation in pro-Palestinian protests during the 373rd Commencement Exercises at Harvard University, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., May 23, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University has announced that will no longer take sides in polarizing political debates, a decision which follows months of condemnation from Harvard students and faculty of Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories and its war to eradicate Hamas.
The policy, described as “institutional neutrality,” is the final recommendation of a report issued by a faculty group which interim president Alan M. Garber convened to study whether Harvard “should use its official voice to address matters of social and political significance.” According to The Harvard Crimson, Garber, as well as the Harvard Corporation, has embraced it.
“The university and its leaders should not, however, issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function,” the report says, citing reasons which crystallized the group’s consensus and outlining its expectations of high-level, non-faculty, Harvard officials.
“Faculty members, speaking for themselves, have expertise in the respective domains of knowledge, and they may often speak about what they know. In so doing, however, they do not speak for the university,” it continues. “The university’s leaders are hired for their skill in leading an in institution of higher education, not their expertise in public affairs. When speaking in their official roles, therefore, they should restrict themselves to matters within their area of institutional expertise and responsibility: the running of a university.”
The report also argues that Harvard’s “integrity and credibility” are “compromised” when it privileges one point of view over another and that doing so sometimes offends groups it aims to “comfort.” Moreover, it emphasized that Harvard’s business is education, not politics.
“If the university and its leaders become accustomed to issuing official statements about matters beyond the core function of the university, they will inevitably come under intense pressure to do so from multiple, competing sides on nearly every imaginable issue of the day,” it continues. “The university is not a government, tasked with engaging the full range of foreign and domestic policy issues, and its leaders are not, and must not be, selected for their personal political beliefs.”
The landmark report comes two weeks after interim president Alan Garber cut a deal with a student anti-Zionist group which ended a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” that had been erected at Harvard Yard. While Harvard made some concessions, including promising the group a meeting with the Harvard Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility to discuss the possibility of divestment from companies linked to Israel and factoring mitigating circumstances into disciplinary decisions rendered in cases brought against students who illegally occupied school property, it refused to adopt a boycott of Israel as a condition of the students’ going home for the summer.
Harvard struggled in its responses to Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on October 7, a wavering critics have attributed to left-wing bias among Harvard leaders. The school, led at the time by a president who later resigned after being outed as a serial plagiarist, was allegedly late in condemning the terrorist group’s atrocities and it became a newfound defender of unbridled free speech — an idea championed by conservative academics and intellectuals at a time when elite universities allegedly took steps to squelch free speech — when over two dozen groups issued a statement blaming Israel for the violence.
It is not clear how “institutional neutrality” will bear on the welfare Harvard’s Jewish students, who, a recently filed lawsuit alleges, have been victims of and witnesses to vicious incidents of antisemitism.
In the hours after the events of October 7, 31 student groups at Harvard issued a statement blaming Israel for the attack and accusing the Jewish state of operating an “open air prison” in Gaza. Later, students stormed academic buildings chanting “globalize the intifada,” a mob followed and surrounded a Jewish graduate student, screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” into his ears, and the Harvard Law School student government passed a resolution that falsely accused Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
In December, former Harvard president Claudine Gay told a US congressional committee that calling for a genocide of Jews living in Israel would only violate school rules “depending on the context.” In February, Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine — a spinoff of a student group allegedly linked to terrorist organizations — shared an antisemitic cartoon on social media which showed a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David, containing a dollar sign at its center, dangling a Black man and an Arab man from a noose. The group’s former leader, history professor Walter Johnson, later participated in a “Gaza encampment” protest in which students clamored for a boycott of Israel.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Anti-Israel Singer Kehlani’s NYC Concert Gets Cancelled After Mayor Faces Pressure
Kehlani walking on the red carpet during the 67th Grammy Awards held at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA on Feb. 2, 2025. Photo: Elyse Jankowski/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
An upcoming New York City concert featuring Israel-hating, American singer Kehlani was canceled late Monday after organizers faced mounting pressure from New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The webpage for the “Pride With Kehlani” benefit concert has also removed from the website of the City Parks Foundation. The privately-funded non-profit organization was hosting the performance, set for June 26 in Central Park, as part of its SummerStage festival series and in celebration of June being Pride Month. The concert was being produced and presented by Live Nation, which reportedly selected Kehlani for the performance.
SummerStage released a statement on Monday explaining its decision to call off Kehlani’s performance. According to the statement, the mayor’s office contacted concert organizers and expressed concerns about “safety and security issues” at the event, especially in light of Cornell University’s recent decision to cancel a performance by Kehlani, “as well as security demands in Central Park and throughout the City for other Pride events during that same time period.”
“We strongly and emphatically believe in artistic expression of all kinds. However, the safety and security of our guests and artists is the utmost importance and in light of these concerns, the concert has been cancelled,” SummerStage said. “SummerStage is proud to be a platform for artists from around the world to perform and make arts accessible for all New Yorkers in their neighborhood parks. While artists may choose to express their own opinions, their views may not necessarily be representative of the festival. SummerStage events are intended to bring together all sectors of the New York City community and we look forward to welcoming more guests throughout the summer.”
Mayor Adams’ administration also threatened to pull the licenses for all SummerStage shows if Kehlani’s concert was not canceled, according to a letter sent to the City Parks Foundation that was obtained by New York Post.
Kehlani released a music video last year that opens with the message “Long live the Intifada,” a phrase that incites violence against Israel and the Jewish community. She has attended pro-Palestinian rallies, accused Israel of genocide, and shared numerous anti-Israel and anti-Zionist posts on social media. In one Instagram post, she wrote: “Dismantle Israel. Eradicate Zionism.” She also shared on social media a post that called for Israel to be removed off the map and replaced with “Palestine.” Kehlani recently claimed that she is not antisemitic.
“I am not antisemitic, nor anti-Jew. I am anti-genocide. I am anti-the-actions-of-the-Israeli-government,” she stated in a video posted on Instagram and TikTok.
Congressman Ritchie Torres, who pushed Mayor Adams to take action and have Kehlani’s Central Park concert canceled, applauded the move by SummerStage to call off the show. “Antisemitism becomes unacceptable only when we, as a society, have the courage to reject it—clearly, consistently, and without compromise,” he wrote on X.
SummerStage is the city’s largest free outdoor performing arts festival. It presents more than 80 free and benefit concerts each summer.
Kehlani has not publicly responded to the cancellation of her New York City concert.
The post Anti-Israel Singer Kehlani’s NYC Concert Gets Cancelled After Mayor Faces Pressure first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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New Study Exposes Antisemitism in University Medical Centers
Illustrative Pro-Hamas protesters in Washington, DC, USA, on April 5, 2025. Photo: Robyn Stevens Brody/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.
Antisemitism in academic medical centers located on college campuses is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish healthcare professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, according to a new study by the StandWithUs Data & Analytics Department.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics and study co-author, Alexandra Fishman said on Monday in a press release. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” the study includes survey data showing that 62.8 percent of Jewish healthcare professionals employed by campus-based medical center reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
“When administrators and colleagues understand what antisemitism looks like, it clearly correlates with less antisemitism in the workplace,” co-author and Yeshiva University professor Dr. Charles Auerbach said. “Recognition is a powerful tool — institutions that foster awareness create safer, more inclusive environments for everyone.”
Monday’s study is not StandWithUs first contribution to the study of antisemitism in medicine. In December, its Data & Analytics Department published a study which found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims.
The study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left over one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 percent, “feeling unsafe or threatened.”
In some schools, Jewish faculty are speaking out.
In February, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFrg) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) accused the institution in an open letter of “ignoring” antisemitism at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM),” charing that its indifference to the matter “continues to encourage more antisemitism.” JFrg added that discrimination at the Geffen medical school has caused demonstrable harm to Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.
“DGSOM’s continued silence in the face of a sustained and deeply troubling rise in antisemitism within its own institution is not just complicity — it is a failure of responsibility,” the group said. “Without strong and principled leadership, this dangerous pattern will persist.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post New Study Exposes Antisemitism in University Medical Centers first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Dozens of Former Eurovision Contestants Pressure Organizers to Ban Israel From 2025 Song Contest
Israel’s representative to the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, Yuval Raphael, holds an Israeli flag in this handout photo obtained by Reuters on Jan. 23, 2025. Photo: “The Rising Star,” Channel Keshet 12/Handout via REUTERS
More than 70 previous contestants of the Eurovision Song Contest on Monday demanded that Israel’s public broadcaster Kan should be banned from the international competition this year because of what they falsely claim is Israel’s “genocide” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Singers, songwriters, musicians, lyricists and others from across Europe signed an open letter, published by Artists for Palestine UK, that was addressed to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the Eurovision Song Contest. In their letter, the anti-Israel creatives urged the EBU to ban Kan, claiming that it is “complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people.”
“We believe in the unifying power of music, which is why we refuse to allow music to be used as a tool to whitewash crimes against humanity,” the open letter stated. The signatories urged EBU to “act now and prevent further discredit and disruption to the festival.”
“Silence is not an option,” they added. “We therefore join together to state that the EBU’s complicity with Israel’s genocide must stop. By continuing to platform the representation of the Israeli state, the EBU is normalizing and whitewashing its crimes … Israel must be excluded from Eurovision.”
The former Eurovision contestants also said that they were “appalled” by the EBU’s decision last year to include Kan in the competition during the Israel-Hamas war.
“The result was disastrous,” they said about the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest. “Rather than acknowledging the widespread criticism and reflecting on its own failures, the EBU responded by doubling down — granting total impunity to the Israeli delegation while repressing other artists and delegations, making the 2024 edition the most politicized, chaotic and unpleasant in the competition’s history.”
During last year’s competition, Israeli singer Eden Golan was booed on stage by anti-Israel audience members, faced death threats, had a anti-Israel Eurovision jury member refuse to give her points, and was forced to conceal her identity outside of the competition for her own safety.
Those who signed Monday’s open letter also accused the EBU of a “double standard” in regards to Israel. They criticized the EBU for expelling Russia’s public broadcaster from the competition in 2022, because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that year, but still allowing Israel to participate in the song contest amid the Israel-Hamas war that started after the deadly Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
“[It] can’t be one rule for Russia and a completely different rule for Israel. You bomb, you’re out,” said former Eurovision contestant Thea Garrett, who represented Malta in 2010.
“I believe that the Israeli government has been and is inflicting genocide on the people of Palestine and for that reason Israel should be barred from competing in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest,” added Charlie McGettigan, who won the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland.
The open letter was signed by creatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, France, Iceland, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The national broadcasters in Iceland, Slovenia and Spain have previously expressed opposition to Israel’s participation in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest.
The open letter was published the same day that Israel’s Eurovision representative this year, singer Yuval Raphael, traveled to Basel, Switzerland, to compete in the song contest. Raphael, who is a survivor of the Nova Music Festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, will compete in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “New Day Will Rise,” a ballad written by singer and songwriter Keren Peles. She will perform in the second semi-final on May 15 and, if she advances, will compete in the Eurovision Song Contest grand final on May 17.
The post Dozens of Former Eurovision Contestants Pressure Organizers to Ban Israel From 2025 Song Contest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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