Harvard president Claudine Gay refuses to punish students behind anti-Israel letter
Harvard president Claudine Gay pushed back on attempts to name students who signed a letter blaming Israel for the massacres committed by Hamas amid mounting criticism of her handling of the crisis.
Gay said the Ivy League school “embraces a commitment to free expression” in a video released Thursday night — her latest attempt to quell outrage from famous Harvard alumni including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.
“That commitment extends even to views that many of us find objectionable, even outrageous,” Gay said.
“We do not punish or sanction people for expressing such views, but that is a far cry from endorsing them.”
Gay, who again condemned the “barbaric atrocities perpetrated by Hamas,” did not specifically mention the more than 30 student organizations that co-signed a statement Saturday by the school’s Palestine Solidarity Committee.
“We can fan the flames of division and hatred that are roiling the world,” Gay said in the clip. “Or we can try to be a force for something different and better.”
The video is the third time that Gay has attached her name to an official statement since Hamas staged its surprise assault on Israeli towns and military bases in the early hours last Saturday — killing more than 1,200 people, wounding thousands, and taking scores as hostages.
An initial statement released Monday by Gay’s office was criticized by Summers for being “delayed” and for failing to explicitly condemn Hamas as well as the student letter.
“We write to you today heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel this weekend, and by the war in Israel and Gaza now underway,” Harvard administrators wrote in the lukewarm statement from Monday that was released by Gay’s office.
Gay released a second statement on Tuesday that read: “As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.”
“Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region.”
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“Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”
The equivocation prompted Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife, Batia, to resign from the executive board of Harvard Kennedy School.
Ackman, the founder of multibillion-dollar hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, demanded that Harvard administrators release a list of the names of students whose groups co-signed the letter.
He also enlisted the support of at least a dozen business executives who vowed to deny employment opportunities to the students whose groups were signatories to the letter.
But Summers and Jason Furman, a former Obama administration official who now teaches at Harvard, accused Ackman of going too far.
Earlier this week, a “doxxing truck” was seen driving around the Harvard campus with digital billboards displaying the names and photos of students who allegedly signed the letter.
Thirty-four student groups at Harvard signed the letter, though five of them have officially renounced their affiliation with the missive.
Amnesty International at Harvard, Harvard College Act on a Dream, the Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Student Association, the Harvard Islamic Society, and Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo all withdrew their endorsements.
Ackman on Friday defended Israel’s response to the Hamas attack, writing on his X social media account: “For context on what is to come, ask yourself how the US would respond if 2,500 Mexican terrorists invaded Texas, brutally killed 1,200 of our citizens including women, children and babies — raping, decapitating and burning them alive — and kidnapped 150 more, including infants.”
