Harvard president: As a Jew, ‘I know very well’ that concerns about antisemitism are valid

By Louis Keene
April 21, 2025

Harvard University President Alan Garber announced a lawsuit seeking to squelch the Trump administration’s punitive actions, saying that he was alert to the dangers of antisemitism the government says it wants to rout, in part because he is Jewish.

Harvard on Monday sued the administration to block various measures proposed by the White House to pressure the school into compliance with its plan to combat antisemitism, including a $2.2 billion federal funding freeze and the revoking of its nonprofit status.

“The government has cited the University’s response to antisemitism as a justification for its unlawful action,” Garber said in his announcement of the lawsuit. “As a Jew and as an American, I know very well that there are valid concerns about rising antisemitism.”

Garber noted the university’s own plans to deal with antisemitism, and argued that the law required the government to first engage with Harvard’s plans, which he said it did not.

“Before taking punitive action, the law requires that the federal government engage with us about the ways we are fighting and will continue to fight antisemitism,” he said. “Instead, the government’s April 11 demands seek to control whom we hire and what we teach.”

The White House plan to fight antisemitism at Harvard set 10 conditions to restore the funding, which include the hiring and admitting of a “critical mass” of new faculty and students to achieve “viewpoint diversity” based on an external audit, and the discontinuation of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

In its lawsuit, Harvard said Trump’s plan to pull funding for medical, scientific, technological, and other research “has nothing at all to do with antisemitism.”

More than 100 Jewish Harvard students have signed an open letter saying they are harmed by the funding cuts.

Addressing antisemitism “effectively requires understanding, intention, and vigilance,” Garber said. “Harvard takes that work seriously. We will continue to fight hate with the urgency it demands as we fully comply with our obligations under the law. That is not only our legal responsibility. It is our moral imperative.”

Garber, 69, became president nine months ago when his predecessor, Claudine Gay, resigned amid accusations she allowed antisemitism to fester on campus. A maelstrom has engulfed Harvard and other Ivy League universities since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

Pro-Palestinian students have accused Garber of being too friendly to Israel.

Garber soon established a task force on combating antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias on campus and a corresponding one on combating anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias, whose reports he said Monday would soon be made public.

“The reports are hard-hitting and painful,” Garber wrote. “They also include recommendations with concrete plans for implementation, which we welcome and embrace.”

Garber, a physician and economist who is said to wrap tefillin daily, did not preview any of the specifics in his statement. But the lawsuit indicated that it had already taken action on some of them.

The school said in the suit it is “actively making structural reforms to eradicate antisemitism on campus,” which included new anti-doxing and anti-encampment policies, and rules that bar discrimination against Zionists, which were already in effect.

Harvard also said it had fired a school employee who ripped down Chabad posters and suspended library access for dozens of students and faculty members who had protested there.

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