Federal pressure on Harvard over antisemitism echoes conservative attacks on higher ed : NPR
The Trump administration has invoked anti -Semitism as a reason to reduce university funds, ban travelers and expeling militant students. But some of the Jewish community say that these stages are missing the brand by promoting security and fighting anti -Semitism.
Ari Shapiro, host:
The Trump administration informed Harvard University that it had violated title VI of the civil rights law. This section prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs that obtain federal aid. A working group from the Ministry of Health and Social Services says that Harvard was, citing, “deliberately indifferent” and even a deliberate participant in the anti -Semitic harassment of students, teachers and Jewish staff. This occurs after Trump said that his administration and the school made progress at the negotiating table. The correspondent for domestic extremism of NPR, Odette Yousef, is there. Hi, Odette.
Odette Yousef, Byline: Hey, Ari.
Shapiro: The administration has already frozen or canceled more than $ 2 billion in federal funds for Harvard. Now it’s threatening to cut what is left. Tell us about the new reasons he quotes for this.
Yousef: Well, many examples he cites campus hostility towards Jewish and Israeli students, Ari, come from Harvard’s own investigation. Harvard summoned working groups to examine anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim prejudices at school. These reports appeared in April. And therefore the administration uses information that the university has found to punish the university. He also focuses only on anti -Semitism, he therefore does not show concern about the conclusions of hostility towards Muslim, Palestinian or Arab students on campus.
But this escalation occurs even after Harvard was credited with the improvement of the conditions of Jewish and Israeli students. You know, the – Even the anti -division league has recognized progress in this area and even called the Trump administration to, quote, “imposing or suggesting extremely serious sanctions which are not linked to the question of the reduction of anti -Semitism”. And this is where the question is, Ari, of what is really the objective here, and it is useful to put it in a broader historical context of attacks against higher education.
Shapiro: Tell us about this context.
Yousef: I spoke with Isaac Kamola on this subject. He teaches political science at Trinity College in Hartford. He says it goes back in the middle of the 20th century. Access to a higher ED has really extended. Colleges accepted more women, people of color, first -generation and low -income students, people who study under the GI bill. And in turn, this has led to new areas of study, such as black studies and gender studies.
Isaac Kamola: From the 1980s, you obtained a massive reaction against this kind of changes from those who want to reproduce the hierarchy, who want to reproduce this vision of America as a white nation – as a white Christian nation – which want to repel the instructions of racial justice in which society went in general and a big role in a role.
Yousef: So the universities, Ari, have become the avant-garde in the pursuit of inclusive democracy. And Kamola says, you know, conservative attacks against universities are really like a counter-revolution that fights against this.
Shapiro: And how is it related to the question of anti-Semitism?
Yousef: Well, Kamola says that anti -Semitism is a real and serious problem, but he sees the administration to use it for other objectives, namely to bring civil rights – or Dei, as we hear more often now – and the reversal of inclusive democracy. This has been incredibly worrying for many whose life work is to fight anti -Semitism because they say that the objectives of the administration could actually worsen the problem. The way Jonathan Jacoby, of the Nexus project, explained to me – he said that nothing was more important for the security of American Jews than democracy.
Jonathan Jacoby: Living as a free people in an open society is essentially unprecedented in Jewish history. And that kept us safe, and our relations with other Americans kept us in safety. And so standing against the armament of anti -Semitism to undermine democracy is part of the position against anti -Semitism.
Shapiro: What does he suggest with regard to the security problems of Jewish and Israeli students?
Yousef: Well, what Jacoby and others have pointed out to me is that the only way is to pursue policies that make campuses safer for everyone, including Muslim and Arab students, colored students and women. Because otherwise, distinguishing the Jewish people as deserving only security could feed conspiracy accounts, and this could lead the Jews to be scapegoats for damage ultimately caused to the higher education system in America.
Shapiro: Odette Yousef de NPR, thank you.
Yousf: Thank you.
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