Harvard University ousted Mary T. Bassett as director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, which has been a prime target in the Trump administration's campaign against anti-Semitism at the Ivy League school.
Bassett confirmed to the Harvard Crimson that School of Public Health dean Andrea A. Baccarelli notified her of her termination Tuesday after seven years as FXB's chief. She will stay at the university as a Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences professor, and Harvard Medical School professor Kari C. Nadeau will serve as interim director.
Under Bassett's leadership, the FXB Center was home to a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Among the list of demands the Trump administration sent to address Jew hate at Harvard was an order to issue an external audit of the FXB Center.
The university refused—but it issued its own anti-Semitism report soon after, which found that the center routinely demonized Israel. The report cited students who complained that the FXB Center's programming created an anti-Israel narrative and criticized several articles by affiliates, including one that argued "academic neutrality is morally, intellectually and disciplinarily incoherent."
The Trump administration's tussle over the FXB Center is just one part of a larger fight with Harvard over campus anti-Semitism, which led the administration to freeze more than $2 billion in federal funding. A federal judge reversed that in September, but the fight remains ongoing, with reported deals failing to materialize.
Before the freeze, Harvard, in anticipation of the funding fight, severed the FXB Center's research partnership with Birzeit University, a West Bank institution known for hosting Hamas military parades. But a Washington Free Beacon review found that half a dozen FXB Center faculty members and affiliates, including Bassett, defended Hamas's Oct. 7 attack and accused Israel of "genocide" and "terrorism."
One week after the terror attack, Bassett sent a message to the FXB Center's students and faculty accusing Israel of "potential genocide." She also penned an article for Qatar's Al Jazeera in February arguing that Israel aims to kill "all Palestinians in Gaza" and calling on the Jewish state to pay "reparations."
FXB visiting scientist, Sawsan Abdulrahim, posted an image of a Hamas paraglider to her since-deleted X account on Oct. 8, 2023, a nod to the terrorists who flew into the Nova music festival, massacred 364 Israelis, and took another 40 hostage. The next day, she shared a post expressing solidarity with the "Al-Aqsa Flood," Hamas's name for the attack. FXB Center postdoctoral fellow Rania Muhareb, meanwhile, said on Oct. 8, 2023, that those in the West who condemned Hamas's attack engaged in "undisguised racism that masquerades as moral concern."
Baccarelli announced the FXB Center's leadership change on Tuesday, though she said Bassett was merely stepping down. She said the move was part of a transition towards focusing on "children's health—particularly during early development, when children are most vulnerable."
When asked for comment, a university spokesman pointed the Free Beacon to Baccarelli's announcement about the leadership change.
