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Among Jewish Americans, a ‘quiet middle’ has growing qualms over the war in Gaza
(JTA) — Rabbi Yael Ridberg recently returned from a four-day mission to Israel with the Jewish Federation of San Diego, which has a 25-year sister-city relationship with Sha’ar HaNegev, a municipality near the Gaza border. Their group witnessed firsthand the destruction and devastation left after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel’s south; among the 1,200 killed was Sha’ar HaNegev’s mayor, Ofir Libstein, who was slain while defending Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
“When I came back,” she said, “and I started to share a little bit about the experience, a few of my congregants, we might call them center left, came away from what I shared feeling, ‘Yes, of course, it’s horrifying. But how can I resist looking away from the footage and the coverage in Gaza?’”
Ridberg, 55, says she understands the “anguish” of these congregants at her synagogue, Congregation Dor Hadash in San Diego. Supporters of Israel, they were plunged into grief by the Oct. 7 murders and hostage-taking and disgusted when allies on the left failed to acknowledge or even justified the suffering of the Jewish victims. Nonetheless, they are appalled by the enormous death toll in Gaza as a result of Israel’s two-month counteroffensive and harboring doubts about Israel’s end-game.
“I think my community is a perfect representation of that sort of quiet middle: People are very clearly supportive of Israel, horrified by the events of Oct. 7, stymied by the silence around the hostages, stymied by antisemitism everywhere — and at the same time, are trying to figure out how to feel as okay as possible with the IDF plan, which for some of them, they’re not sure what that plan is,” said Ridberg.
“And the farther we get away from October 7,” she said, “the harder it is for some of them to feel fully grounded in what that support needs to look like.”
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, much has been made of the political divide between an older generation of Jews who take Zionism for granted and a younger generation who are less attached to Israel than their elders.
But even among firm supporters of Israel, who back Israel’s right to defend itself and accept its goal of eradicating a deadly enemy, are those who feel neither at home in the Jewish left — which includes anti-Zionists who have opposed Israel’s retaliation from its beginning — or in the mainstream which they say is uncritical of the Israeli war effort.
“I’m someone who looks at what seems to me to be quite inflammatory language from the American left decrying Zionism, and I recoil as someone who believes that Israel has a right to exist,” said Michael Pasek, 33, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, Chicago, who has studied the psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “And yet, I then look at actions taken in the name of quote Zionism, that seem to be endorsed by quote, Zionists, and ask myself, What am I closer to?”
Rabbi Yael Ridberg meets with leaders of Achim L’Neshek-Brothers and Sisters for Israel — a civilian operations center in Tel Aviv — during a mission to Israel with the Jewish Federation of San Diego, Nov. 30, 2023. (Guy Yechiely/Jewish Federation of Sand Diego).
Whether they call it “stuck in the middle” or “threading the needle,” these are Jews who wouldn’t join a Jewish-led protest calling for a ceasefire, but bristle at some of the messages of unquestioning solidarity heard during pro-Israel rallies led by mainstream Jewish groups.
“I am too progressive for the Zionists and too Zionist for the progressives,” writes journalist Steven Zeitchik in a JTA essay. A longtime reporter at the Washington Post and founder of a tech newsletter, Zeitchik finds himself caught between the militancy of his father, a Holocaust survivor who experienced the Oct. 7 atrocities as a fresh trauma, and the empathy he feels for innocents caught in the line of fire. “Perhaps that is my place, tilted between trauma and empathy,” he writes. “Perhaps that is the curse of the survivor’s son. You are destined to live in the lonely middle — haunted by everything, aligned with no one.”
That sense of loneliness is exacerbated by the poisonous discourse on social media, where nuance is dismissed by one side as collaboration with the other side. Many American Jews also have friends and relatives in Israel, including some in the army and some whose relatives were taken hostage, and are wary of appearing critical or ambivalent about the war when the country is unified around it. A few I spoke to did not want to be identified out of deference to these friends and relatives.
Many Jews are also wary of appearing to support a far left that is accusing Israel of carrying out a “genocide” — often the same groups endorsing a ceasefire.
Many of the people I spoke to for this article said they noticed a shift in recent weeks, as the grief, anger and solidarity felt after Oct. 7 gave way to more complicated feelings about the war.
That shift could be seen in the person of President Joe Biden — not Jewish, but a pro-Israel politician whose initial, horrified reaction to the Hamas attacks and the green light he gave to Israel seemed to mirror the feelings of so many Jews. As the death toll has risen in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis worsens, Biden has signaled that his patience is running out, and that Israel must take more care to protect civilians, ensure more deliveries of humanitarian aid and — while still firmly avowing his support of Israel.
“There’s a sense of people wanting to be more clear that they are resolutely committed to the people of Israel, which is not the same thing as the government of Israel,” said Jeremy Burton, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, when I asked if he has seen a shift in his community. “Folks are still very much holding their anger, their grief, their core issues like freeing the hostages. But there’s been an increasing sense of the importance of addressing the long-term commitment to a larger resolution of the conflict and genuine concern over Palestinian civilians. It’s holding those things together.”
Coinciding with the administration’s shift is one on the Jewish left. While far-left groups like IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace began demanding a ceasefire within days of the war, and cast the war almost exclusively in terms of Palestinian suffering and Israeli culpability, left-leaning groups like J Street and T’ruah were careful to weigh calls for peace with empathy for Israel. Over 750 rabbis and cantors signed a T’ruah letter written and circulated beginning Oct. 20 that condemned the Hamas attacks, praised the “extraordinary response by Israel’s civil society,” and called for “a just, negotiated political solution that protects the human rights and political self-determination of both peoples.” The letter did not mention a ceasefire, but rather called on “all parties to follow the laws of armed conflict in order to ensure the safety of Israeli and Palestinian civilians.”
On Thursday, nine weeks later and with the reported death toll in Gaza at over 18,000, T’ruah put out a new statement calling on the Biden administration “to pressure Israel to return to the negotiating table to reach another ceasefire and end the war.”
J Street also toughened its stance on Israel since October, issuing on Dec. 7 a statement saying that if Israel “fails to modify the nature of the military campaign or to take the steps urged by the United States, J Street will call on the Biden administration to change course.”
President Joe Biden, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue in New York City host a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House, Dec. 11, 2023. “We continue to provide military assistance to Israel until they get rid of Hamas,” Biden said at the event. “But we have to be careful. They have to be careful. The whole world’s public opinion can shift overnight. We can’t let that happen.” (Bonnie Cash/Pool/Getty Images)
Both T’ruah and J Street are widely seen as to the left of where most U.S. Jews are, and they certainly don’t speak f0r a conservative minority — common but not restricted to the Orthodox community, who tend to be hawkish on Israeli policy, including strong support for the settlement movement in the West Bank.
But polls show that most Jewish Americans identify as Democrats, feel attached to Israel and support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Most Jews are somewhere in the middle — you know, kind of hawkish doves or dovish hawks,” said Dov Waxman, 49, director of UCLA’s Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. “They’re concerned about the safety of Israel and Israelis that’s genuine, but at the same time, they also care and they’re also concerned about human rights and supportive of a two-state solution.”
Waxman said there aren’t polls at the moment gauging Jewish attitudes to the war, but in his conversations with Jewish leaders — including a group of non-Orthodox rabbis he met with on Thursday — he’s seen a definite shift since the first month.
“There are growing concerns and qualms about the war not in terms of a justification for going after Hamas, but over the costs of this war on Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” he said. “In addition to the displacement and humanitarian crisis, there are concerns about Israel’s conduct of the war in terms of whether it is really doing its best to minimize casualties.”
This balancing act — between empathy and outrage over the trauma inflicted on Israel, and qualms about the destruction of Gaza and the war’s aftermath — are also being heard in the sermons of rabbis who are strongly supportive of Israel.
On Dec. 9, in her Shabbat morning sermon, Rabbi Sharon Brous of the independent IKAR congregation in Los Angeles warned about the impulse to dehumanize the Palestinians in Gaza. “I am not a military strategist. I do not dare to suggest that I know how Israel is supposed to keep its people safe after Hamas has demonstrated through atrocities mimicking those of the most sadistic divisions of the” Nazis, she said. And yet, she continued, Jews must “muster the moral imagination to reckon with the other not as a bloodthirsty predator but perhaps as a parent, just like us, also aching for their lost child.”
In his Shabbat sermon on Dec. 2, Rabbi Jesse Olitzky of the Conservative Congregation Beth El in South Orange, New Jersey decried the silence of women’s and humanitarian groups over allegations of sexual violence carried out by Hamas terrorists. And while he acknowledged the realities of war and inevitable casualties that result in pursuit of a justified objective like holding Hamas accountable, he said Torah asks that “we not use our anger and our grief to take it out on everyone. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to get there.” But Torah he said, “deems” Jews to strive for restraint even when “we don’t always get there.”
Waxman said the strong consensus seen in the first month of the war is also being eroded by concerns over the ultimate aims of the Israeli government, a far-right coalition that, as Biden recently said, “does not want a two-state solution.” Waxman hears “doubts about whether Israel is going to be able to achieve its goals in the war. What are its plans for the future of Gaza? There’s the concern that this could easily end up in a long-term Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, even if that’s not what Israel wants.”
Sara Lithwick, 46, a rabbi and lawyer in Ottawa, Ontario who chairs the Reform Jewish Community of Canada’s Tikkun Olam Steering Committee, worries that a binary discourse that rejects “multiple perspectives” has “drowned out” the voices of people and groups working toward a better future for Israeli and Palestinians. Among the groups she mentioned are Hand in Hand, a network of joint Arab-Israeli schools in Israel; the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and the coexistence group Standing Together. Although such groups tend to be described as left-wing, they are also dismissed by Israel’s harshest critics as “normalizing” Israel.
“The only way I can imagine getting to the next place is by continuing to build connections across lines of difference,” she said. “It doesn’t need to be about solutions, but just in terms of our mutual humanity and holding each other up.”
She said her parents, whom she describes as “pretty centrist” professionals, are also struggling with their feelings after two months of the war. They sympathize with Israel’s goal of preventing another Oct. 7, but feel anguish at the death of children in Gaza, and lack trust in the current Israeli government and wonder what the long-term solution will be.
“My heart is breaking for my parents,” said Lithwick.
Michael Pasek also worries that Israel is carrying out the war — and Jewish organizations are supporting it — without a vision of a lasting solution. “I am someone who thinks that Zionism should be compatible with a two-state solution,” he said, “but I don’t see many leaders of Israel and, quite frankly, American Jewish mainstream organizations, advocating for Zionism in a way that I think is compatible with that.”
“This is a really, really hard struggle for the most Zionist among us and the most peace-loving among us,” said San Diego’s Rabbi Ridberg. To describe the tug she feels in both directions — toward unwavering support for Israel and concern over the Palestinians – she quotes the Tamudic sage Hillel: “If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I?”
“I am fully supportive of this just war and its mission, and my struggle every single day is a responsibility that we have in both directions, according to Hillel,” she said. “How do I absorb the full impact of this war on Israel and Gaza?”
—
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NYC Mayor Eric Adams Calls Zohran Mamdani an ‘Antisemite’ Who Has Embraced Hamas, Says Jews ‘Should Be Concerned’
New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends an “October 7: One Year Later” commemoration to mark the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack in Israel at the Summer Stage in Central Park on October 7, 2024, in New York City. Photo: Ron Adar/ SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has accused mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani of spreading antisemitic views, citing Mamdani’s past remarks and anti-Israel activism as he starts his efforts to thwart the progressive insurgent.
Adams’s repudiation comes in the aftermath of a heated mayoral Democratic primary in which Mamdani, a 33‑year‑old democratic socialist, former rapper, and New York City Assembly member, achieved a stunning upset over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday. While Mamdani has denied being antisemitic, Adams argued that some of Mamdani’s rhetoric, including his defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” crosses the line into inflammatory territory and risks alienating Jewish New Yorkers.
In the Thursday interview with journalist Don Lemon, Adams slammed Mamdani for his “embracing of Hamas” in his public comments and rap lyrics. The mayor labeled Hamas a “murderous organization” that murders members of the LGBTQ+ community and uses “human beings as shields” when engaging in military conflict with Israel.
“You can’t embrace Hamas, and the mere fact that you embrace Hamas says a lot,” he said.
During his rap career, Mamdani released a song praising the “Holy Land Five,” a group of five men connected to the Hamas terrorist group. The men were accused of funneling millions in cash to Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation — a charity organization that was shut down by the federal government in 2001 for having links to terrorist groups.
The mayor added that the city’s Jewish community should be “concerned” with Mamdani’s comments.
Eric Adams after campaign kickoff calls his Democratic rival, Zohran Mamdani, “an antisemite” who, he says, has embraced Hamas.
“Those who are Jewish should be concerned.” pic.twitter.com/COZSF9jHXE
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) June 26, 2025
Adams is battling to keep his political future alive amid mounting legal and political troubles. A federal bribery probe into foreign campaign donations cast a shadow over his administration until charges were unexpectedly dropped by a Trump-aligned Justice Department, sparking accusations of political favoritism. Since then, Adams has leaned into right-wing rhetoric on crime and immigration, forging relationships with allies of US President Donald Trump and refusing to rule out a party switch, moves that have alienated Democratic leaders and progressives alike and caused his approval ratings to spiral.
Adams, who is running for reelection as an independent, had reportedly hoped for Mamdani to emerge victorious in the Democratic primary, believing that a face-off against the progressive firebrand would create an opportunity to revive his near-moribund reelection campaign by highlighting the democratic socialist’s far-left views.
Mamdani, a progressive representative in the New York State Assembly, has also sparked outrage after engaging in a series of provocative actions, such as appearing on the podcast of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas influencer Hasan Piker and vowing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
During an event hosted by the UJA-Federation of New York last month, Mamdani also declined to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
“I believe that Israel has a right to exist with equal rights for all,” Mamdani said in a carefully worded response when asked, sidestepping the issue of Israel’s existence specifically as a “Jewish state” and seemingly suggesting Israeli citizens do not enjoy equal rights.
Then during a New York City Democratic mayoral debate, he once again refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, sparking immediate backlash among the other candidates.
In 2023, while speaking at a Democratic Socialists of America convention in New York, Mamdani encouraged the audience to applaud for Palestinian American community activist Khader El-Yateem, saying, “If you don’t clap for El-Yateem, you’re a Zionist.”
High-profile Democratic leaders in New York such as Sen. Chuck Schumer, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries have congratulated and complemented Mamdani but have not yet issued an explicit endorsement. Each lawmaker has expressed interest in meeting with Mamdani prior to making a decision on a formal endorsement, indicating discomfort within Democratic circles regarding the presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee’s meteoric rise over the past few months.
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Civil Rights Nonprofit Slams Pro-Hamas Briefs Defending Harvard Lawsuit Against Trump
April 20, 2025, Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University and Harvard Square scenes with students and pedestrians. Photo: Kenneth Martin/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect.
A new amicus brief filed in the lawsuit that Harvard University brought in April to stop the Trump administration’s confiscation of some $3 billion of its federal research grants and contracts offered a blistering response to previous briefs which maligned the institution’s decision to incorporate the world’s leading definition of antisemitism into its non-discrimination policies.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, legal briefs weighing in on Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, et al. have been pouring in from across the country, with dozens of experts, think tanks, and student groups seeking to sway the court in what has become a historic confrontation between elite higher education and the federal government — as well as a showdown between Middle American populists and coastal elites.
Harvard’s case has rallied a team of defenders, including some who are responsible for drawing scrutiny of alleged antisemitism and far-left extremism on campus.
Earlier this month, the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) — which blamed Israel for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel mere hours after images and videos of the terrorist organization’s brutality spread online — filed a brief which compared Zionists to segregationists who defended white supremacy during Jim Crow, while arguing that Harvard’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — used by hundreds of governing institutions and widely accepted across the political spectrum — is an instrument of conspiracy and racist oppression.
“Adopting the IHRA definition, granting special status to Zionism, and penalizing pro-Palestinian student groups risks violating the Title VI rights of Palestinians on campus,” the filing said. “There is ample evidence that adoption of IHRA and other policies which limit speech supporting Palestinian rights are motivated by an intent to selectively silence Palestinians and students who advocate on behalf of Palestinians. Such action cannot be required by, and indeed appear to violate, Title VI [of the Civil Rights Act].”
The document added, “Though the main text of the definition is relatively benign, the illustrative examples — seven of the eleven which pertain to criticism of Israel — make clear that they are aimed at preventing Palestinians from speaking about their oppression.”
Similar arguments were put forth in other briefs submitted by groups which have cheered Hamas and spread blood libels about Israel’s conduct in Gaza, including the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and other anti-Zionist groups.
“Harvard’s incorporation of IHRA was an overdue and necessary response to the virulent and unchecked antisemitic discrimination and harassment on its campus,” the Brandeis Center said in its response to the arguments, noting that Harvard itself has determined that embracing the definition is consistent with its obligations under Title VI, which have been reiterated and stressed by the US Office for Civil Rights (OCR) guidance and two executive orders issued by President Donald Trump.
“Misunderstandings about what antisemitism means — and the form it takes — have long plagued efforts to address antisemitic conduct. Modern versions of antisemitism draw not only on ancient tropes, but also coded attacks on Zionism and the Jewish state, which often stand in for the Jewish people in modern antisemitic parlance,” the organization continued. “Sadly, this is nothing new: Soviet propagandists for decades used the term ‘Zionist’ or ‘Zio’ in this coded way. This practice has become commonplace among antisemites in academia who seek to avoid being labeled as racists.”
The Brandeis Center also argued that IHRA does not “punish or chill speech” but “provides greater transparency and clarity as to the meaning of antisemitism while honoring the university’s rules protecting free speech and expression.” The group stopped short of urging a decision either for or against Harvard, imploring the court to “disregard” the briefs submitted by PSC, JVP, and MESA.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard sued the Trump administration, arguing that it bypassed key procedural steps it must, by law, take before sequestering federal funds. It also said that the Trump administration does not aim, as it has publicly pledged, to combat campus antisemitism at Harvard but to impose “viewpoint-based conditions on Harvard’s funding.”
The Trump administration has proposed that Harvard reform in ways that conservatives have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Its “demands,” contained in a letter the administration sent to interim Harvard president Alan Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implored Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
On Monday, the attorneys general of Iowa, Kansas, Georgia, Florida, and 12 other states said the Trump administration took appropriate action to quell what they described as Harvard University’s flagrant violation of civil rights laws concerning its handling of the campus antisemitism crisis as well as its past history of violating the Constitution’s equal protection clause by practicing racial preferences in admissions.
“Harvard both admits that it has a problem with antisemitism and acknowledges that problem as the reason it needs a multi-agency Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. Yet when the federal government acted to rectify that acknowledged violation of federal law through a negotiated practice, Harvard cried retaliation,” the attorneys general said in their own brief. “Its characterization of its refusal to follow federal nondiscrimination law as First Amendment speech is sheer chutzpah.”
They continued, “There is strong evidence of Harvard’s discriminatory animus, and the First Amendment does not shield it from consequences. This court should deny summary judgement and allow the federal government to proceed with enforcing the law. Perhaps if Harvard faces consequences for violating federal antidiscrimination law, it will finally stop violating federal antidiscrimination law.”
Trump addressed a potential “deal” to settle the matter with Harvard last Friday, writing on his Truth Social platform, saying a “deal will be announced over the next week or so” while praising the university’s legal counsel for having “acted extremely appropriately during these negotiations, and appear to be committed to doing what is right.” He added, “If a settlement is made on the basis that is currently being discussed, it will be ‘mindbogglingly’ HISTORIC, and very good for our Country.”
To date, Harvard has held its own against the federal government, building a war chest with a massive bond sale and notching a recent legal victory in the form of an injunction granted by a federal job which halted the administration’s restrictions on its international students — a policy that is being contested in a separate lawsuit. Garber has reportedly confirmed that the administration and Trump are discussing an agreement that would be palatable to all parties.
According to a report published by The Harvard Crimson on Thursday, Garber held a phone call with major donors in which he “confirmed in response to a question from [Harvard Corporation Fellow David M. Rubenstein] that talks had resumed” but “declined to share specifics of how Harvard expected to settle with the White House.”
The Crimson added, “He also did not discuss how close a deal could be and said instead that Harvard had focused on laying on steps it was already taking to address issues that are common ground for the University and the Trump administration. Areas of shared concern that have been discussed with the White House included ‘viewpoint diversity’ and antisemitism.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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University of Virginia President Resigns Amid DEI Controversy With Trump Administration
US President Donald Trump speaks to the media as US Attorney General Pam Bondi and US Attorney General Todd Blanche listen, on June 27, 2025. Photo: Reuters Connect
The University of Virginia (UVA) is without a president following the reported resignation of James Ryan, a move which the US Justice Department stipulated as a condition of settling a civil rights case brought against the institution over its practicing racial preferences in admissions and hiring, a policy it justified as fostering “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI).
As first reported by The New York Times, Ryan tendered his resignation in a letter to the university’s corporate board on Thursday, noting that he had originally intended to step down at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 academic year. Recent events hastened the decision, the Times added, including several board members’ insisting that Ryan leave to prevent the institution’s losing “hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding” that the Trump administration would have impounded had he remained in office.
Ryan drew the scrutiny of the Justice Department, having allegedly defied a landmark Supreme Court ruling which outlawed establishing racial identity as the determinant factor for admission to the university as well as a series of executive orders US President Donald Trump issued to shutter DEI initiatives being operated in the public and private sectors. Such programs have been accused of fostering a new “anti-white” bigotry which penalizes individual merit and undermines the spirit of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement by, for example, excluding white males from jobs and prestigious academic positions for which they are qualified.
Another DEI-adjacent practice was identified at UVA in 2024, when the Equal Protection Project, a Rhode Island based nonprofit, filed a civil rights complaint against the university which argued that its holding a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) Alumni-Student Mentoring Program is discriminatory, claiming no public official would think it appropriate to sanction a mentoring program for which the sole membership criterion is being white. UVA later changed the description of the program, claiming that it is open to “all races, ethnicities, and national origins” even as it stressed that it was “created with BIPOC students in mind.”
The university’s tactics were allegedly employed to hide other DEI programs from lawmakers and taxpayers, with Ryan reportedly moving and concealing them behind new names. He quickly exhausted the patience of the Trump Justice Department, which assumed office only months after the BIPOC program was reported to federal authorities.
“This is further demonstration that the Trump administration is brutally serious about enforcement of civil rights laws. This will send shock waves throughout higher education, and it should,” Kenneth Marcus, chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told The Algemeiner on Friday, commenting on the news. “It is a clear message that university leaders will be held accountable, personally and professionally, if they fail to ensure their institutions’ compliance.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Trump administration is leading a campaign against colleges and universities it has deemed as soft on campus antisemitism or excessively “woke.” Over the past several months, the administration has imposed catastrophic financial sanctions on elite universities including Harvard and Columbia, rattling a higher education establishment against which conservatives have lodged a slew of criticisms for decades. The actions coincide with a precipitous drop in public support for academia caused by an explosion of pro-Hamas demonstrations on campuses and the promotion of views which many Americans perceive as anti-meritocratic, anti-Western, and racist.
Since January, the administration has impounded $3 billion in Harvard’s federal funds over the institution’s refusal to agree to a wishlist of policy reforms that Republican lawmakers have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Contained in a letter the administration sent to Harvard interim president Alan Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — the policies called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implore Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Columbia University has announced that it acceded to similar demands put forth by the Trump administration as prerequisites for the restoration of its federal funds — including a review of undergraduate admissions practices that allegedly discriminate against qualified Jewish applicants, the enforcement of an “anti-mask” policy that protesters have violated to avoid being identified by law enforcement, and enhancements to the university’s security protocols that would facilitate the restoration of order when the campus is disturbed by unauthorized demonstrations.
Harvard is reportedly prepared to strike a deal with Trump as well, according to a Thursday report by The Harvard Crimson.
Garber, the paper said, held a phone call with major donors in which he “confirmed in response to a question from [Harvard Corporation Fellow David M. Rubenstein] that talks had resumed” but “declined to share specifics of how Harvard expected to settle with the White House.”
The Crimson added, “He also did not discuss how close a deal could be and said instead that Harvard had focused on laying on steps it was already taking to address issues that are common ground for the university and the Trump administration. Areas of shared concern that have been discussed with the White House included ‘viewpoint diversity’ and antisemitism.”
Meanwhile, others continue to argue that Trump’s reforms of higher education threaten to mire the university in politics while describing Ryan’s resignation as a setback for academic freedom.
“It is a sign that major public research universities are substantially controlled by a political party whose primary goal is to further its partisan agenda and will stop at nothing to bring the independence of higher education to heel,” Michigan State University professor Brendan Cantwell told Inside Higher Ed on Friday. “It undercuts both the integrity of academic communities as self-governing based on the judgement of expert professionals and the traditional accountability that public universities have to their states via formal and established governance mechanisms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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