A Harvard professor who is one of the campus's most hard-line anti-Israel activists is joining the board that doles out Pulitzer Prizes.
The professor, Vijay Iyer, was described in a Jan. 26 press release from the Pulitzer Board as "an influential composer, pianist and scholar in jazz and contemporary art music."
Not included in the press release was Iyer's track record as a member of Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, whose social media account posted a cartoon of a hand with a Jewish star and a noose that Harvard president Alan Garber described as "The Antisemitic Cartoon."
One of Iyer's social media posts, dated Nov. 29, 2023, was the subject of a Harvard student complaint. The post referred to "the most powerful people on the planet doubling down on their evil, deranged state-sponsored terror." The complaint noted, "Israel is far from the most powerful country on Earth; the insinuation is not the current Israeli government, but the Jewish people."
A March 2025 song by Iyer is titled "Kite (for Refaat Alareer)." The Gazans used "terror kites" as incendiary weapons against Israel. Alareer was a Gazan poet whose social media posts included messages such as "Are most Jews evil? Of course they are," and "Zios are the dirtiest little snitches."
The Columbia Spectator reported that Iyer performed the "Kite" song on the piano at a May 2024 "People's Graduation" event. At the same event, a speaker, Randa Jarrar, said, "We defeated Napoleon. We are defeating Israel. We defeated Columbia. We defeated the NYPD. We will defeat any PD… We will defeat cop city. We will defeat cop universities. We are dismantling this empire." Jarrar reportedly thanked the crowd for "taking seriously the work of globalizing the intifada," and was met with a standing ovation. Iyer lives in New York City. The university-wide Columbia graduation was canceled in 2024 because the administration couldn't commit to securing it amid violent anti-Israel protests.
In May 2024, Iyer praised Harvard's student encampment anti-Israel protesters. "This youth-led movement is speaking to one of the most burning issues facing the world today, which is: how do we respond to plausible genocide, and what can be done about it from wherever we stand," he told WGBH. The Harvard Crimson pictured Iyer in a keffiyeh with a bullhorn and quoted him speaking at the encampment as "a member of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine."
"We encourage the Harvard administration to refrain from any retaliation against the students," the Crimson quoted Iyer as saying.
The Crimson also paraphrased Iyer as asking the dean at a May 2025 faculty meeting "why divestment from Israel was not on the table after the semester of protests."
Iyer also signed a Nov. 14, 2023, letter to then-Harvard president Claudine Gay that said, "As Harvard faculty, we have been astonished by the pressure from donors, alumni, and even some on this campus to silence faculty, students, and staff critical of the actions of the State of Israel. It is important to acknowledge the patronizing tone and format of much of the criticism you have received as well as the outright racism contained in some of it. We were nevertheless profoundly dismayed by your November 9 message entitled 'Combating Antisemitism.'" That faculty letter said, "It cannot be ruled as ipso facto antisemitic to question the actions of this particular ethno-nationalist government." It also faulted Gay for singling out the phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free," calling Gay's criticism of the phrase "imprudent as a matter of university policy and badly misjudged as an act of moral leadership."
Iyer's anti-Israel activism predated Oct. 7, 2023. He signed a May 2021 Harvard faculty statement demanding that Harvard "divest from companies that aid in Israeli colonization, occupation, and war crimes," according to the Crimson.
Iyer also signed a May 2021 statement critical of the Museum of Modern Art in New York: "many members of the MoMA board are directly involved with support for Israel's apartheid rule, artwashing not only the occupation of Palestine but also broader processes of disposession [sic] and war around the world. ... With figures like Lauder, Crown, and Tananbaum on its board, MoMA cannot pretend to stand apart from the attack on Gaza or the Occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem more broadly. Because the corporate power and wealth that sits atop the museum suffuses all of its operations, there are no clean hands. Given these entanglements, we must understand the museum for what it is: not only a multi-purpose economic asset for billionaires, but also an expanded ideological battlefield through which those who fund apartheid and profit from war polish their reputations and normalize their violence."
As far back as 2013, Iyer was telling NPR that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were "racialized." He said, "The way that the enemy was construed and talked about was in very racialized terms, and because we just saw brown and dark-skinned people being targeted as suspects across America over the last decade, both through airport surveillance and through homeland security roundups and all of these things." It was a bit much even for the NPR host, who said, "I have to ask you, Vijay, because the perspective that you're laying out — it's a pretty leftist perspective, that sees the wars as being highly racialized, somewhat imperial misadventures. Obviously, that's kind of a minority view in the military, and, I would imagine, probably even a minority view among the veterans of color."
The Pulitzer administrator did not respond by deadline to an email asking whether the board was aware of his strident anti-Israel activism on social media and in person. The Pulitzer Board is based at Columbia University and has final say over awarding the prizes that many journalists and authors regard as prestigious. This past year, the board gave the Commentary prize to a writer, Mosab Abu Toha, who used his social media account to deride an Israeli hostage, Emily Damari. The dean of Columbia Journalism School, Jelani Cobb, is also on the Pulitzer Board. Cobb issued a September 2024 statement denouncing Israel for closing an office in Ramallah of Al Jazeera, a network that is controlled by the government of Qatar and has been used as cover by terrorists. Cobb's statement acknowledged neither the Qatari control nor the terrorists using Al Jazeera cover.
The Pulitzer Board is self-perpetuating, meaning its members choose new members. Board members are limited to three three-year terms.
Iyer did not respond by deadline to an email asking whether he stands by all his anti-Israel activism or has reconsidered any of it. I asked, "Any regrets on that front? How about your involvement in the faculty group that posted what Garber called 'the antisemitic cartoon'? How do you square it with your responsibilities as a Pulitzer Board member to judge journalism on the topic?"
Iyer's job at Harvard, Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts, is a joint appointment in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies. One of his Harvard colleagues in African and African American Studies, Tommie Shelby, was co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2022 and served on the board beginning in 2015. A third Harvard African American Studies professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., was also a Pulitzer board member from 1997 onward and chair in 2005.
Iyer has locked access to his X account, but the Washington Free Beacon obtained an electronic file with screenshots of hundreds of his social media posts. A review of them discloses:
— For someone with a full-time job as a professor at Harvard and who was also working as a professional musician, Iyer devoted a lot of time and energy to posting on social media about the war in Gaza. There are hundreds of posts related to Israel and Gaza that he issued in the months following Oct. 7.
— Iyer was amplifying repeating accusations of "genocide" against Israel as early as October 2023. On Oct. 27, 2023, he reposted a reference to "the continuous 21-day Israeli aggression," which is quite a way to describe Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack.
— Not only doesn’t Iyer like Israel, he also doesn’t like capitalism. On Oct. 24, 2023, he reposted a tweet that said, "Capitalism helps to enable blacklisting. When peoples’ income and bellies can be threatened this way, it does not create a culture of debate, justice, and truth-seeking. It creates another layer of exploitation that extracts silence in exchange for profit, greed, discipline, etc." Another tweet he reposted defended the Houthis in Yemen: "The number of people justifying the killing of Yemenis over a naval blockade is insane. When did it become normalized to kill people over property. Who raised y’all? Capitalism corrupts the soul indeed." Another post he amplified said, "Gaza is a real-time alarm bell that genocide may become a political tool in the decades to come for resolving capital’s intractable contradiction between surplus capital and surplus humanity."
— Iyer does not have the best news judgment. On Oct. 10, 2023, he retweeted a post suggesting that readers should "try Aljazeera." He did not mention that the network is owned and operated by the government of Qatar or that it’s been used as cover by terrorists.
— On Oct. 7, 2023, Iyer reposted an item from "Medical Aid for Palestinians" that said, "Today’s escalation is one of the most violent that we have ever witnessed in Gaza, with hospitals overwhelmed by casualties within hours. Please consider donating to our emergency response today." NGO Monitor says that Medical Aid for Palestinians "Promotes distorted and false narratives and demonizing rhetoric under the guise of medical expertise and scientific fact."
— On Jan. 16, 2024, Iyer posted, "Colleges & universities have not acknowledged Palestinian lives. This is not okay." He added a broken heart emoji.
A broken heart emoji is in order for anyone who might have expected Pulitzer Prize entries related to Israel—or even for that matter economics—to be judged by someone with expertise in journalism or a track record of clear thinking, rather than someone with a bullhorn and a keffiyeh spreading vile conspiracies about the "evil" of Jewish power.
