Harvard, other schools with encampments slammed for ‘hostile learning environment’

U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss is demanding university officials to take down pro-Palestinian encampments as they’re creating a “hostile learning environment” for Jewish and Israeli students, but he says that can happen without more federal laws.

The Massachusetts Congressman on Thursday visited Harvard University, where an encampment popped up on April 24, and spoke with Jewish and Israeli students. The interactions, he said, provided a clear indication that the Cambridge campus is in violation of Title VI.

“I believe they’re disparately treating their Israeli students, in particular, and they’re (giving) a hostile learning environment for both their Jewish and Israeli students,” Auchincloss told reporters after meeting with students in Harvard Square.

“That’s illegal,” he added.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits race, color, or national origin discrimination in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance, including harassment based on a person’s shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.

Harvard has been under the federal microscope for potential discrimination following antisemitism complaints since Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Oct. 7.

The U.S. Department of Education last November added Harvard to its list of schools that are under investigation for possible civil rights violations as students have reported antisemitic incidents amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Students at MIT, where another encampment is in place, filed a federal lawsuit against the university in March, claiming leadership there has deliberately ignored antisemitism in violation of the students’ rights under Title VI.

Auchincloss’ visit to Harvard came days after the congressman wrote a letter to leadership at Massachusetts schools that received poor grades in an Anti-Defamation League report showing how they’re failing to address the rising tide of antisemitism.

Boston University, Northeastern, Wellesley College, and Williams College, all received a ‘C’ grade, while Harvard, MIT, Tuft and UMass Amherst, received an ‘F’ grade.

Auchincloss said he has communicated “directly” with Harvard leadership “repeatedly over the last several months and over the last several days.”

“It’s the same pattern with Harvard University in which the administrators say the right things in the meeting, they nod and then nothing ever happens,” he said. “Students repeatedly raise complaints about harassment, disparate treatment, and a hostile learning environment.

“Those complaints go down a blackhole of bureaucracy, never to be heard from again. Students have given up on trying,” he added.

Students on campuses across the country have responded to the violence in Gaza with protests, calling on school administrators to divest from business entanglements with the Israeli government. Hundreds of students and faculty have been arrested by police, including in Boston, after being ordered to disperse.

On Wednesday, the House approved and sent a bill to the Senate that seeks to broaden the legal definition of antisemitism to include the “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” Auchincloss was one of the 91 against the measure.

“It’s unconstitutional,” Auchincloss said Thursday of the bill. “It doesn’t solve the problems that we’re having here on campus. What it does is restrict academic freedom. We don’t need a different law to solve the problem that we’re seeing right now … We need the leadership of these universities to enforce laws that already exist.”