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Antisemitism on Campus: Harvard Is the Ultimate Trust Fund Kid
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
With 80% of its $53 billion endowment restricted by donors, Harvard announced plans to borrow $750 million as “contingency planning,” while facing a $2.26 billion freeze in Federal funding.
Harvard has spent two years throwing tantrums, making excuses, and avoiding accountability while Jewish students faced unprecedented bigotry on campus since October 7, 2023 — an event that prompted more than 30 student groups to issue a statement blaming Israel entirely for the massacre.
Harvard is widely regarded as a prestigious Ivy League school, a hedge fund with a campus, or the world’s top university. But its refusal to address anti-Jewish hatred reveals an undeniable truth: Harvard is the ultimate trust fund kid.
Playing by Different Rules
Trust fund kids operate by a simple principle: rules apply to others, not them. Harvard exemplifies this attitude in its response to campus hatred against Jews.
When the Department of Health and Human Services issued a 34-page Notice of Violation on June 30 documenting Harvard’s “deliberate indifference” to anti-Jewish harassment, the findings spoke for themselves. Federal investigators found Jewish students were spit on, stalked, physically assaulted, and excluded from campus spaces while Harvard administrators debated “context.”
The most revealing example, according to the federal Notice, is that Harvard police “essentially refused to investigate” the videotaped assault of Israeli student Yoav Segev in October 2023. Despite footage from multiple angles, including a news helicopter, police wouldn’t cooperate with prosecutors seeking to identify additional attackers.
When one officer showed determination to pursue justice, the Notice states that Harvard “swiftly removed him from the investigation” and told officers “to halt their investigation and not to cooperate with local authorities.”
Assistant District Attorney Ursula Knight called Harvard’s behavior “a surprise to the Commonwealth,” telling the court that Harvard police “essentially refused to do that work.” This wasn’t mere incompetence. It was a deliberate strategy to protect perpetrators of anti-Jewish violence.
When prosecutors agreed to a pretrial diversion allowing the students to avoid conviction entirely — they walked away with little more than 80 hours of community service for assault — Harvard still declined to discipline or even investigate the students under its own policies.
On the contrary, Harvard rewarded the two students that the prosecutor said were responsible for the assaults. One received a $65,000 Harvard Law Review fellowship to work at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization whose executive director said he was “happy to see” Gazans “break the siege” on October 7 and declared that Israel “does not have that right to self-defense.” The other became a class marshal for graduation. This isn’t institutional failure. It’s institutional protection of bigotry.
Hollow Gestures
When pressured, Harvard responds with performative charity work. The university announced “partnerships” with Israeli universities that amount to existing exchange programs with new branding. It’s a masterclass in creating the appearance of action while changing nothing.
More telling is Harvard’s timing. The university published its antisemitism report the same day as its Islamophobia report, treating both communities’ suffering as equivalent public relations problems to be managed simultaneously. This wasn’t about reckoning with systemic issues. It was about damage control.
Harvard’s idea of accountability? Offering a course called Palestine 1000 Years, taught by three professors who participated in the illegal encampments that harassed and denigrated Jewish students in the spring of 2024. Imagine the outrage if Harvard offered a course on “Confederate Heritage” taught by professors who participated in white supremacist rallies.
Selective Compliance
Trust fund kids show a remarkable ability to choose which rules apply to them. When the Biden administration investigated Harvard for civil rights violations over legacy admissions in 2023, Harvard cooperated quietly without lawsuits or public complaints. An investigation that could justify admitting more full-tuition-paying international students while burnishing Harvard’s diversity credentials? No problem.
But when the Trump administration investigates Harvard for enabling anti-Jewish hatred, using Harvard’s own task force findings as evidence, suddenly Federal oversight becomes an assault on academic freedom requiring immediate legal action, especially to free Federal funding that Harvard wants.
The difference reveals Harvard’s calculation. Investigations that align with Harvard’s political positions and financial interests are acceptable. Investigations that threaten to expose institutional failures and demand real accountability? Outrageous government overreach.
Harvard’s selective enforcement reveals its true priorities. When removing professors for research misconduct, the university moved swiftly and publicly. Francesca Gino became the first tenured professor fired in 80 years after allegations of data falsification, a decision Harvard announced with fanfare and defended vigorously.
But when Harvard quietly removed professors connected to anti-Jewish hatred on campus, it did so without public announcements or victory laps. The message was clear: some forms of misconduct deserve public accountability, while others merit quiet protection.
The HHS Notice of Violation documented this pattern extensively. Students who violated identical campus policies received wildly different punishments depending on which of Harvard’s 13 schools they attended. When even these minimal consequences faced faculty criticism, Harvard reversed suspensions and downgraded sanctions. The Palestine Solidarity Committee, which repeatedly violated campus rules, faced the same ineffectual temporary probation year after year, restrictions that barely limited activities during the academic year.
Real Consequences Arrive
Trust fund kids can’t be trusted to change. They double down on anything that maintains their fragile appearance of respectability among their peers. Harvard’s been prioritizing its fight against the Trump administration. It fights the Trump administration harder than it ever fought antisemitism.
The government’s Notice of Violation gives Harvard a choice: implement meaningful reforms or face US Justice Department intervention.
Given Harvard’s track record of broken promises and cosmetic changes, Federal enforcement may be the only opportunity for a new path. For an institution claiming to educate leaders, Harvard’s own leadership has been conspicuously absent when moral courage mattered most. Harvard would strengthen its case against government overreach if it had actually protected Jewish students instead of enabling their harassment.
Roni Brunn is a writer and advocate for Jewish life in higher education.
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US Links $1.9 Billion in State Disaster Funds to Israel Boycott Stance
A resident enters a FEMA’s improvised station to attend claims by local residents affected by floods following the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Marion, North Carolina, US, Oct. 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
US states and cities that boycott Israeli companies will be denied federal aid for natural disaster preparedness, the Trump administration has announced, tying routine federal funding to its political stance.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency stated in grant notices posted on Friday that states must follow its “terms and conditions.” Those conditions require they certify they will not sever “commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies” to qualify for funding.
The requirement applies to at least $1.9 billion that states rely on to cover search-and-rescue equipment, emergency manager salaries, and backup power systems among other expenses, according to 11 agency grant notices reviewed by Reuters.
The requirement is the Trump administration’s latest effort to use federal funding to promote its views on Israel.
The Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees FEMA, in April said that boycotting Israel is prohibited for states and cities receiving its grant funds.
FEMA separately said in July that US states will be required to spend part of their federal terrorism prevention funds on helping the government arrest migrants, an administration priority.
The Israel requirement takes aim at BDS, the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement designed to isolate the world’s lone Jewish state on the international stage as a step toward its eventual elimination.
“DHS will enforce all antidiscrimination laws and policies, including as it relates to the BDS movement, which is expressly grounded in antisemitism,” a spokesperson for Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a statement.
The requirement is largely symbolic. At least 34 states already have anti-BDS laws or policies, according to a University of Pennsylvania law journal. The BDS movement did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The American Jewish Committee supports the Trump administration’s policy, said Holly Huffnagle, the group’s director of antisemitism policy. The AJC is an advocacy group that supports Israel.
Under one of the grant notices posted on Friday, FEMA will require major cities to agree to the Israel policy to receive a cut of $553.5 million set aside to prevent terrorism in dense areas.
New York is due to receive $92.2 million from the program, the most of all the recipients. Allocations are based on the agency’s analysis of “relative risk of terrorism,” according to the notice.
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Iran Sets Up New Defense Council in Wake of War With Israel
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a meeting in Ilam, Iran, June 12, 2025. Photo: Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran‘s top security body approved the establishment of a National Defenxe Council on Sunday, according to state media, following a short air war with Israel in June that was Iran‘s most acute military challenge since the 1980s war with Iraq.
“The new defense body will review defense plans and enhance the capabilities of Iran‘s armed forces in a centralized manner,” the Supreme National Security Council‘s Secretariat was quoted as saying by state media.
The defense council will be chaired by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and consists of the heads of the three government branches, senior armed forces commanders, and relevant ministries.
On Sunday, the commander-in-chief of Iran‘s military, Amir Hatami, warned that threats from Israel persist and should not be underestimated.
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Israel to Decide Next Steps in Gaza After Ceasefire Talks Collapse
Smoke rises from Gaza as the sun sets, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet this week to decide on Israel‘s next steps in Gaza following the collapse of indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas, with one senior Israeli source suggesting more force could be an option.
Last Saturday, during a visit to the country, US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had said he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza.
But Israeli officials have also floated ideas including expanding the military offensive in Gaza and annexing parts of the shattered enclave.
The failed ceasefire talks in Doha had aimed to clinch agreements on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce, during which aid would be flown into Gaza and half of the hostages Hamas is holding would be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel.
After Netanyahu met Witkoff last Thursday, a senior Israeli official said that “an understanding was emerging between Washington and Israel,” of a need to shift from a truce to a comprehensive deal that would “release all the hostages, disarm Hamas, and demilitarize the Gaza Strip,” – Israel‘s key conditions for ending the war.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday that the envoy’s visit was seen in Israel as “very significant.”
But later on Sunday, the Israeli official signaled that pursuit of a deal would be pointless, threatening more force: “An understanding is emerging that Hamas is not interested in a deal and therefore the prime minister is pushing to release the hostages while pressing for military defeat.”
“STRATEGIC CLARITY”
What a “military defeat” might mean, however, is up for debate within the Israeli leadership. Some Israeli officials have suggested that Israel might declare it was annexing parts of Gaza as a means to pressure the Palestinian terrorist group, which has ruled the enclave for nearly two decades.
Others, like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir want to see Israel impose military rule in Gaza before annexing it and re-establishing the Jewish settlements Israel evicted 20 years ago.
The Israeli military, which has pushed back at such ideas throughout the war, was expected on Tuesday to present alternatives that include extending into areas of Gaza where it has not yet operated, according to two defense officials.
While some in the political leadership are pushing for expanding the offensive, the military is concerned that doing so will endanger the 20 hostages who are still alive, the officials said.
Israeli Army Radio reported on Monday that military chief Eyal Zamir has become increasingly frustrated with what he describes as a lack of strategic clarity by the political leadership, concerned about being dragged into a war of attrition with Hamas terrorists.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to comment on the report but said that the military has plans in store.
“We have different ways to fight the terror organization, and that’s what the army does,” Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said.
On Tuesday, Qatar and Egypt endorsed a declaration by France and Saudi Arabia outlining steps toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which included a call on Hamas to hand over its arms to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
Hamas has repeatedly said it won’t lay down arms. But it has told mediators it was willing to quit governance in Gaza for a non-partisan ruling body, according to three Hamas officials.
It insists that the post-war Gaza arrangement must be agreed upon among the Palestinians themselves and not dictated by foreign powers.
Israel‘s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar suggested on Monday that the gaps were still too wide to bridge.
“We would like to have all our hostages back. We would like to see the end of this war. We always prefer to get there by diplomatic means, if possible. But of course, the big question is, what will be the conditions for the end of the war?” he told journalists in Jerusalem.