Harvard University – My Alma Mater – Where is your GPS?

I have vivid warm memories of the beautiful Spring morning on June 6^th, 1990, walking through the famous Harvard Yard following my graduation from Harvard Law School. Harvard inculcated in me the importance of intellectual honesty and critical thinking. In my final semester at Harvard, I took an elective course titled “Comparative Talmudic Studies” taught by the late Professor Menachem Elon, an Associate Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court. I sat next to Professor Alan Dershowitz who was ‘auditing’ the course and who was instrumental in me meeting the late Bostoner Rebbe in Brookline.

It is safe to say, it was a different era – a time of scholastic excellence and intellectual pursuits, where people respected disparate opinions.

Fast forward thirty-three years …

Within a few hours of the most horrific invasion of Israel by the Hamas terrorist organization, a statement authored by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and originally co-signed by 33 other Harvard student organization is released on social media claiming Israel is “entirely responsible” for the murder of over 1300 innocent people and the kidnapping of more than 230 civilians, including women and babies.

How is it possible that an institution which was synonymous with tolerance and equality for all could respond with deafening silence to the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians by terrorists on October 7^th and to boot, refuse to take issue with the tone deaf and disingenuous statement released by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee?

The motto of Harvard is “veritas,” meaning “truth” in Latin. Let’s examine whether Harvard – in the past thirty years or so – has maintained its claim of “truth” as the leading Ivy League School that has prided itself on intellectual excellence and integrity without any partisan perception or bias by citing a few examples:

• In the past several years, Harvard has been the proud recipient of 102 Major Gifts from Arab sources totaling an amount of $187, 133, 626.
• The traditional models of education – especially the Weberian notion of classroom neutrality – has been pushed aside in favor of extremist “critical pedagogy,” which embraces the notion that the professor should become a “scholar-practitioner” and participate in the social activism of particular movements.

• In the name of social justice, Harvard academicians have proudly pioneered the most insidious brainwashing theories such as implicit bias – a concept pioneered by Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji, among others – which refers to supposed unconscious or hidden prejudices that do not manifest themselves overtly.
• Harvard has insisted on offering an academic platform to unpopular politicians to continue to perpetuate ideologies that failed in the real world. Two conspicuous examples are Lori Lightfoot, “America’s Worst Mayor,” who was hired to teach a ‘leadership course’ at Harvard after running a poor third in her campaign to be re-elected as Mayor of Chicago, and Bill de Blasio, who landed a teaching gig at Harvard notwithstanding his failures as mayor of New York and attaining less than one percent in his campaign for president.

Trying to hang the tepid response by the Harvard leadership to the unconscionable statement by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee on the nebulous “freedom of speech” hook, is transparent for anyone who wishes to focus on “veritas” – i.e. – the truth.

If the leadership at Harvard had the courage to stand up and explain that taking issue with people who glorify savages who murdered, raped and kidnapped may jeopardize billions of dollars of donations from Arab sources who would like nothing more than to wipe Israel off the map, coupled with their fear of alienating some of the pseudo liberal tenured professors who have been drinking the Kool Aid for years – while I may not agree or feel comfortable – at the very least, I would have to concede that Harvard would be in synch with their mission statement of truth.

The fact that Harvard claims to be the bastion of truth and yet remained silent in the face of the biggest genocide of Jewish people since the Holocaust is not only intellectually dishonest, but it also displayed an obvious lack of leadership and moral compass.

Harvard is the most famous tertiary educational institution in the world. Once again, let’s examine what pedagogical lessons future generations will learn from Harvard’s equivocal position.

In addition to lacking the intestinal fortitude to tell the truth, the teachable moment is lost forever. Instead of doing what is right – even if the decision would be unpopular and result in losing some Arab donors – the lesson Harvard taught the world is that it is more important to be expedient and protect one’s financial status than to have integrity and character.

Hundreds of years of culture and sagacity went out the window when Harvard betrayed its mission.

I treasure the many happy memories of my days at Harvard and will always be grateful to my alma mater for the close life-long relationships I cultivated, but sadly, in a matter of days, Harvard showed itself to be little more than a subversive fifth column, dedicated to destroying Western civilization – for which the Jews and the Jewish state serve as the proverbial canaries in the coal mine.

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Antony Gordon – a Fulbright Scholar and graduate of Harvard Law School (LL.M) has also completed several Executive Programs at Harvard Business School. Antony is a WSJ and USA Today Best-Selling Author, Top 100 TEDx Talk Speaker (2022) and one of The 50 Most Impactful People of LinkedIn (2022). Antony spearheads business development for Adeptus Partners, one of the leading business management firms in the USA, which represents some of the most prominent celebrities, professional athletes, and Influencers in America.