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New York Times Unloads Immense New ‘1619-Project’-Style Attack on Israel
A boy walks home in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kida, Aug. 31, 2010. Photo: REUTERS/Nir Elias
The New York Times has unveiled a new, 1619-Project-style attack on Israel — an error-ridden, overwrought, extensively hyped, self-referential, self-congratulatory, and super-long article.
Like the 1619 Project, this latest article comes with a catchy, short headline: “The Unpunished.”
Like the 1619 Project, this project is a product of the New York Times Magazine.
And like the 1619 Project, it comes with an introduction and display text that overstates and oversimplifies its claims: “How Extremists Took Over Israel” and “After 50 years of failure to stop violence and terrorism against Palestinians by Jewish ultranationalists, lawlessness has become the law.” Not to mention: “This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.”
The Times article itself is so mind-numbingly long that the newspaper published a Cliffs-Notes-style summary of it that unfortunately isn’t much help, either.
The summary complains about what it calls a “two-tier situation” in which West Bank Arabs face military law while Israeli citizens there “are treated according to the civil law of the State of Israel.” Yet nearly all countries, including the United States, distinguish between citizens and non-citizens in their legal system. The Times, in all its many words, doesn’t explain why or how the distinctions Israel makes are different or worse or unjustified given the extraordinary and unusual violent terrorist threat the country faces from Arabs opposed to its existence and determined to eradicate the Jewish presence there.
The paper also claims that, “in the West Bank, a new generation of ultranationalists has taken an even more radical turn against the very notion of a democratic Israeli state. Their objective is to tear down Israel’s institutions and to establish ‘Jewish rule’: anointing a king, building a temple in place of the Jerusalem mosques sacred to Muslims worldwide, imposing a religious regime on all Jews.”
That’s a sweeping over-generalization. Jews have prayed since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in ancient times for its rebuilding, speedily and in our days, as part of the messianic redemption. That hasn’t been a threat to anyone.
Many West Bank residents, as the Times itself has acknowledged frequently, are both “secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews” who “moved there largely for cheaper housing.” The New York Times reported in February 2023 about “religious right-wingers,” residents of Efrat in the West Bank, who “have become a visible presence at weekly anti-government protests in Tel Aviv, a bastion of secular and liberal Israelis.” It described them as “more liberal-minded religious Zionists, who support a more pluralist approach to Jewish life and a more tolerant approach to Palestinians, even while still opposing Palestinian sovereignty.” That level of nuance and complexity is absent from the summary of the latest Times investigation, rendering it inaccurate and misleading.
The full Times article is no better. The Times asks, “How did a young nation turn so quickly on its own democratic ideals, and at what price? Any meaningful answer to these questions has to take into account how a half-century of lawless behavior that went largely unpunished propelled a radical form of ultranationalism to the center of Israeli politics.”
There is a passing, brief acknowledgement that “many Israelis who moved to the West Bank did so for reasons other than ideology, and among the settlers, there is a large majority who aren’t involved in violence or other illegal acts against Palestinians.” Yet the Times‘ focus is relentlessly on the extremists, distorting the reality.
The language the Times chooses to use echoes the debate over civil rights for black Americans. “Two separate and unequal systems of justice: one for Jews and another for Palestinians.”
The Times mischaracterizes Jewish history. “While the Zionism of the earlier period was largely secular and socialist, the new settlers believed they were advancing God’s agenda,” the Times claims. “Largely” is not “exclusively.” Some of the earlier Zionists also believed they were advancing God’s agenda. To the First Zionist Congress in 1897, Rabbi Samuel Mohilever sent a message, quoted in Gil Troy’s The Zionist Ideas, saying “the resettlement of our country … is one of the fundamental commandments of our Torah.” Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence begins by stating that “the Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious, and political identity was shaped.” The document adds, “It will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.”
The Times also mischaracterizes Palestinian history. It refers to a mayor of Nablus, Bassam Shaka, as among “prominent Palestinian figures,” without mentioning that he was a supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) when it was a terrorist group and was jailed by Jordan as a member of the Syrian Baath Party — as was reported earlier by the Times itself.
The Times is unremittingly pessimistic. It quotes a former Shin Bet director, Ami Ayalon, saying, “We are not discussing Jewish terrorism. We are discussing the failure of Israel.” Yet Israel has not failed. It is a nuclear power with a strong economy, loyal and patriotic citizens, and strong support from the US Congress. Every year, tens of thousands of Jews from around the world voluntarily choose to leave countries such as France and the United States and move to Israel.
The Times is so negative that it manages to attack Israelis for planting trees. A photo with the article has a cutline that says, “Settlers planting trees near an illegal settlement called Mitzpe Yair, in the South Hebron hills, as a way of claiming territory.”
The Times predictably blames Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for inviting extremists into his coalition. “Netanyahu, who is now on trial for bribery and other corruption charges, repeatedly failed in his attempts to form a coalition after most of the parties announced that they were no longer willing to join him. He personally involved himself in negotiations to ally Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party, making them kingmakers for anyone trying to form a coalition government. In November 2022, the bet paid off: With the now-critical support of the extreme right, Netanyahu returned to office.”
Yet Netanyahu also wooed Arab and centrist parties. Indeed, Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid refusing to join a Netanyahu-led coalition also turned Ben-Gvir and Smotrich into kingmakers. The political situation is such that nearly anyone who wanted could have been a kingmaker.
The Times reports, “Shin Bet had monitored Ben-Gvir in the years after Yitzhak Rabin’s murder, and he was arrested on multiple charges including inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization. He won acquittals or dismissals in some of the cases, but he was also convicted several times and served time in prison.” Ironically, the arrests, convictions, and prison time undercut the whole Times narrative about “a sometimes criminal nationalistic movement that has been allowed to operate with impunity.” It’s not “impunity” if there are arrests, convictions, and imprisonment. And if there’s no possibility of acquittal or dismissal, then that’s not due process or the rule of law, either.
The errors are compounded in the Times‘ “The Morning” newsletter, which explains, “Some geographical background: Mark and Ronen’s story focuses on the West Bank, which, like Gaza, is a Palestinian territory that Israel occupies.” Declaring the West Bank “a Palestinian territory that Israel occupies” denies that Jews have lived in places such as Hebron for thousands of years and that the Jewish people have longstanding historical and religious ties to the place — the West Bank literally includes Judea. The newsletter also refers to “Israel’s endorsement of settler lawlessness,” which goes beyond even the magazine article in falsely claiming an official Israeli government endorsement of violent crime.
The Times promotes this series with a video featuring New York Times magazine reporter Ronen Bergman, the Nikole Hannah-Jones of this adventure when it comes to self-regard. Text on the screen says, “How Israel Became Radicalized” and has Bergman stating, “What is happening in the West Bank is a total separation of two sets of law, one for Jews, one for the local Palestinians.”
Bergman makes much in the video about how “what is unique in the story we are publishing in the magazine, the New York Times,” is that the material is “almost in its entirety coming from Israeli officials … the professionals, in the defense establishment, and the intelligence community.” This is ironic, because the claim comes after the Times, in fine print, credits video provided by B’Tselem, a far-left Israeli human rights group that gets nearly half its funding from outside Israel, including from the UN, the European Union, and the Ford Foundation. Somehow Bergman doesn’t have the juice with the defense establishment to get video footage and needs to rely on B’Tselem?
Anyway, the claim that this is in any way “unique” is nonsense. Israel’s version of WASPs — white, Ashkenazi sabras with protektzia — have disdain for religious Jews, for West Bank settlers, and for Netanyahu. They’ve tried to undercut Likud prime ministers with leaks to friendly New York Times journalists dating back to the Begin days. Bergman has been the mouthpiece of those Israeli defense establishment types to the New York Times dating back to 2016, at least.
Nor is it unique that the Times would attack Israel in wartime by trying to falsely depict its government as being captured by extremists who, if anything, have in fact been largely sidelined since Oct. 7, 2023. Netanyahu has consistently not given them what they ask for. They aren’t in the war cabinet, not even as observers. Nor is it unique for the Times to try to define the Israeli “occupation” of the West Bank as the main problem in the Middle East rather than, say, other problems such as Islamist, Iranian, and Arab extremism, corruption, antisemitism, and rejection of Israel’s right to exist.
None of this is to say that there are not some bad apples among Israel’s West Bank settlers or that Israel has sometimes struggled with policing the West Bank. Yet criminal justice in America is imperfect, too, and criminal justice in the Palestinian Authority amounts to paying official government stipends to the families of terrorists. So why the relentless focus on Israel’s shortcomings?
Just as the 1619 project monocausally blamed racist white slave owners for everything in American history, including the American Revolution, the Times wants to claim that a handful of extremist West Bank settlers explain all of Israel’s problems, and that Israel explains all of the Middle East’s problems. That is deceptive. It leaves out plenty of important factors, including, but not limited to, the Obama-Biden incorrect conviction that paying off Iran and surrendering in Afghanistan and Syria would make America or Israel safer, the State Department-Israeli left’s incorrect conviction that peace could be successfully negotiated and kept with the PLO, and the majority of the Israeli public’s correct understanding that their security couldn’t be assured by Antony Blinken or Martin Indyk absent vast changes in Arab society.
The problem is, if you make more limited claims for the importance of the settler story, it becomes much harder to justify the immense investment of reader and reporter and editor time, space, and money to devote to it. Call it the 1619 paradox. The more excessive the space and years devoted to a New York Times investigative project, the more hyperbolically excessive will be the author’s claims for its importance, and the less likely they are to be empirically true. Or, to put it simply, the bigger a New York Times investigative project, the less likely it is to give a reader an accurate understanding of the real world.
“Unpunished,” sadly, is whichever Times editor had the poor judgment to greenlight this overly ambitious and fatally flawed project. Punished, sadly, will be any Times readers or future Pulitzer Prize jurors unfortunate enough to waste any of their time reading it.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here. He also writes at TheEditors.com.
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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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