The previous president of Harvard resigned after being accused of antisemitism and not doing enough to stop antisemitic speech on campus. A temporary president is now in charge. But the school’s new interim head says they will fight “pernicious” antisemitism on campus.
The interim president, Alan Garber, told the Harvard Crimson that he is worried about stories of Jewish students being “shunned” by other students on campus. He talked about putting together a task group to work on this and try to make things better.
Garber said, “What gets to me the most are the times or situations that students say they felt they couldn’t speak in class because of attacks on Israel or maybe Israelis.”
Garber has started to make changes and hear what the kids at the school think should be done.
People have told me that they don’t like how some classes only show and accept certain points of view on controversial topics. The kids I’ve talked to don’t think that a speech code or any other way of stopping people from speaking is the answer. “Neither do I,” he answered.
“Rather, they want the opposite,” he said. A place in the classroom where different points of view are valued. Making that kind of environment possible is work I’m dedicated to advancing.”
The school is being looked into by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce because of how it dealt with anti-Semitism. All of this happened after Claudine Gay, the former president, quit her job as president of Harvard University. Gay’s answer to a question asked in a congressional meeting was being closely looked at.
She was also being looked into for plagiarism charges, and it was said that the investigation would continue even though Claudine Gay was no longer head of the University. So, the temporary president and many other University leaders have promised to make changes and find solutions to the issues the University is facing right now.
