Final warning to Harvard before subpoena on antisemitism investigation

There was only one “document of significance” among over 1,000 Harvard has sent the House committee investigating Jew hatred on its campus, said the chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued a final warning on Wednesday to Harvard to produce all its data related to its campus antisemitism investigation within a week or face a subpoena.

“Harvard’s responses have been grossly insufficient, and the limited and dilatory nature of its productions is obstructing the Committee’s efforts,” Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) wrote to Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker and Interim President Dr. Alan Garber.

“If Harvard continues to fail to comply with the Committee’s requests in a timely manner, the Committee will proceed with compulsory process.”

Just over a month ago, the Congressional committee had demanded a long list of documents, emails and communications between Harvard’s Corporation members regarding what was being done on campus to combat the outpouring of hatred against Israel and Jewish students and faculty that has caused many to fear even walking to and from their classes.

These include proofs of disciplinary procedures initiated against offending students or staff, and actual minutes of board meetings which were previously described to the committee only as including a “discussion of recent developments on campus and in the broader University community related to the war in Israel and Gaza.”

According to Foxx’s letter, Harvard had said it had not “identified meeting minutes” on the subject, which she was not prepared to believe.

“Given the publicly documented antisemitism on Harvard’s campus, especially since the October 7 attacks, it would be shocking if the Board of Overseers and Harvard Management Company thought protecting Harvard’s Jewish students was so insignificant that the topic was not worthy of discussion at a single meeting,” the congresswoman wrote.

The single “document of significance” that the committee has received so far, Foxx wrote, was a list of recommendations from late December that had been composed by the school administration’s advisory committee on antisemitism.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton responded to the letter by writing the same day that the school was “cooperating with the Committee’s inquiry and has provided extensive information.” It would also be sending more documentation on Friday, he added.

So far, the Ivy League institution has sent just over a thousand pages of information that is already in the public domain, such as university statements and publicized court cases being brought by Jewish students against the university due to its allegedly lax handling of the antisemitism they are experiencing on campus.

Foxx had called these submissions “woefully inadequate” last month.