The presidents of three prestigious schools are backtracking after their congressional testimony this week on anti-Semitism prompted backlash, but it has not stopped the criticism.
The presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of Pennsylvania testified to Congress on Tuesday about the rise of anti-Semitic hate speech at their schools.
All three presidents avoided answering whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the universities’ codes of conduct.
“It can be, depending on the context,” Harvard’s president Claudine Gay said. She said such hate speech is “at odds with the values of Harvard” and that when that kind of “speech crosses into conduct, that violates our policies.”
“I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus,” said MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth.
University of Pennsylvania’s president Elizabeth Magill said, “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment,” adding that it is a “context-dependent decision.”
Bill Ackman, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management who is also a Harvard alumnus, called for the three presidents to “resign in disgrace.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement Wednesday that “it’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) also called on the presidents to resign, saying that “their hypocrisy is stunning.”
Magill addressed the criticism in a video released Wednesday evening.
“In that moment, I was focused on our university’s longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable,” Magill said in the video. “I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate. It’s evil — plain and simple.”
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Gay, Harvard’s president, put out an even stronger statement on Wednesday.
“There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account,” Gay said.
Kornbluth attempted to express her understanding to critics in an open letter released later on Tuesday after her testimony.
“After these past weeks, I know many of you are exhausted and hurting. We have to make room for each other, in our hearts and in our daily lives,” Kornbluth said. “We cannot and must not let events in the world drive us apart, or erode our respect for each other’s humanity, or thwart the great mission we’re here to pursue together.”