U.S. Senator and Harvard graduate John Fetterman (D-PA) criticized his alma mater after the university’s president resigned earlier this week.
Former Harvard President Claudine Gay stepped down from her position on Tuesday following an extensive plagiarism scandal and her widely criticized testimony before Congress on anti-Semitism. Fetterman told Semafor reporter David Weigel on Friday that he doesn’t “recognize” the university he graduated from in 1999.
“As an alum of Harvard — look, I graduated 25 years ago, and of course it was always a little pinko. But now, I don’t recognize it,” the Democrat said.
A survey of Harvard’s 2022 graduating class found that more than one in four seniors held “very progressive” political views and 40% said they were “progressive,” while only 4% of the graduates said they had “conservative” views and 2.4% identified as “very conservative.” Around 27% of the 2022 graduating class said they held “moderate” political views.
Fetterman has angered leftists recently after coming out in support of Israel, calling for more border security, and saying that he’s “not a progressive.” Fetterman previously slammed UPenn President Liz Magill for her Congressional testimony on anti-Semitism, which came in the same hearing that Gay was also criticized for avoiding an answer on whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the universities’ codes of conduct.
“There is no ‘both sides-ism’ and it isn’t ‘free speech,’ it’s simply hate speech. It was embarrassing for a venerable Pennsylvania university, and it should be reflexive for leaders to condemn antisemitism and stand up for the Jewish community or any community facing this kind of invective,” Fetterman said in a statement, responding to Magill’s testimony.
Magill announced her resignation in early December, shortly after her testimony before Congress, which sparked outrage from the board of the Penn Wharton Business School. Gay followed suit with her resignation on January 2, but unlike Magill, it wasn’t just Gay’s Congressional testimony that put her on the hot seat. The former Harvard president has also been hit with nearly 50 allegations of plagiarism affecting eight of her 17 published works.
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In Gay’s resignation letter, she claimed “racial animus” had fueled “personal attacks and threats” against her.
“Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubts cast on my commitments to confronting hate and upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus,” Gay wrote.