On Jan. 21, Harvard University agreed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-semitism and establish a new, unprecedented partnership with an Israeli university as part of a settlement agreement for two ongoing lawsuits accusing the University of antisemitism.
The settlement was reached just one day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, following bipartisan Congressional scrutiny against Harvard and other American universities since October 2023 for their students’ advocacy for Palestine. In the Spring of 2024, student encampments were erected on campuses across the nation condemning universities’ complicity in the Gaza genocide and demanding they divest from Israeli companies and U.S. weapons manufacturers. Although the agreement closes the two Title VI lawsuits, leading plaintiff and Harvard alumnus Shabbos Kestenbaum rejected the settlement, promising to continue the legal battle in close coordination with the Trump administration, “to ensure Harvard’s endowment is taxed, its funds are withheld, and its faculty are properly disciplined.” Kestenbaum was a speaker at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Championed widely by Zionist lobby groups, the IHRA definition conflates critique of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism, providing grounds for penalizing pro-Palestine rhetoric. Harvard is the first Ivy League university to adopt this interpretation of the definition. The settlement stipulates the integration of the IHRA definition into Harvard’s Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying (NDAB) policies, in addition to explicit provisions protecting “Zionists” under the NDAB.
The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) and Harvard Jews for Palestine (J4P) condemned Harvard’s move, calling out the University for choosing to “protect Zionism – a racist, genocidal, political ideology – over its students’ right to demand an end to the occupation.”
In a Signal message sent to Palestine Square, J4P organizer Violet Barron explained that under this settlement, “I could easily imagine a situation in which a Palestinian student is disciplined simply for speaking out against the occupation and annihilation of their people. I could just as easily imagine a situation in which any one of the hundreds of anti- and non-Zionist Jewish students on this campus is charged with antisemitism.”
On Jan. 28, J4P led a commemoration event to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day and mourn those killed in the genocide in Gaza, the first pro-Palestine demonstration at Harvard after the most recent policy changes. Holding banners with phrases such as “Jews Against Zionism” and “The Holocaust Does Not Justify the Nakba,” organizers told The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student paper, that their protest and language “pretty explicitly violated” the terms of the IHRA definition and Harvard’s NDAB.
In addition to targeting student organizing, the new definition also has implications for the ways in which Israel and Zionism are discussed in the classroom. History professor Kirsten Weld told The Harvard Crimson that the IHRA definition will “chill all speech and inquiry that has anything to do with Israel, Palestine, the Middle East, Judaism.”
Shortly after the decision, Jay Ulfelder, director of the Nonviolent Action Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School’s (HKS) Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation announced his resignation “in protest of the university’s response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza and deepening repression of student activism opposing it.” In an open letter, shared publicly on his BlueSky account, he described the IHRA adoption as the “final push” in his decision to leave Harvard, which has consistently “[prioritized] the university’s funds and reputation over its students and its stated values.”
Last week, Professor Diane Moore, head of the Religion and Public Life (RPL) at the Harvard Divinity School, resigned prematurely from the University, as did her Assistant Dean Hussein Rashid, with the latter publishing an open letter addressed to his students describing his experience at Harvard as a “mirror of larger systems operating against Muslims and Arabs.” His letter called out Harvard administrators for justifying the Nakba, and interfering with RPL’s programming, which has frequently featured Palestinian voices and narratives.
Outside of campus, Harvard’s decision drew widespread criticism. Human Rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber called out the university for “officially [abandoning] free speech, academic freedom, and the defense of human rights on behalf of an oppressive foreign regime.”
Simultaneously, Harvard has continued to attract attention due to its differential treatment of pro-Palestine students. In late January, the Harvard Medical School unilaterally canceled a lecture with medical patients from Gaza, describing it as “one-sided” for its lack of Israeli panelists. Commentators from within and outside the Harvard community have pointed out the uncoincidental timing of such a decision, coming days after Harvard’s IHRA adoption, and the announcement of a new partnership with an Israeli university.
Responding to the prospect of this partnership, PSC organizer Victoria Amani Mwaniki Kishoiyian told Palestine Square in a written statement sent via Signal that she is waiting for “the outcry of professors in the social sciences and humanities, especially those who claim to be counter-propagandist and anti-colonial.” She added that “academia in Israel is integral to the army and the government,” producing the “policies and technologies of occupation.”
An academic partnership with Israel runs in direct contradiction with one of the key demands of the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) encampment in the spring of 2024, where students called on the University to establish a center for Palestine Studies. Last spring, Harvard placed disciplinary sanctions on over 70 students for their role in the encampment, suspending and evicting student protesters and barring 13 seniors from graduating for several months. This unprecedented mass discipline – never before invoked for protest movements at Harvard – accompanied a series of policy changes that targeted pro-Palestine students. Most recently, Harvard caught national attention for repeatedly suspending students from its libraries due to their participation in “study-ins,” where students would silently study wearing keffiyehs and taping flyers about Palestine on their laptops.
While the newest policies are projected to target pro-Palestine speech at Harvard, the agreement comes a week after another legal battle between Harvard students and administration: the Muslim Legal Fund of America’s (MLFA) complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on behalf of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and allied students. The OCR’s investigation of MFLA’s complaint revealed that Harvard had failed to properly respond to “complaints of the discrimination and harassment” of said students and the resulting settlement obligates Harvard to institute the proper protections. In practice, it is unclear how the University will square its non-discrimination obligations with the escalating restrictions on Palestinian identity and pro-Palestine speech.