House Republicans in a letter Monday slammed Harvard University's anti-Semitism task force for the "inadequacy" of the recommendations it released last month, demanding the Ivy League university take concrete steps to address rising anti-Semitism on campus.
"We write to you with serious concerns regarding the inadequacy of your Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Semitism’s Preliminary Recommendations that were released on June 6," 28 House Republicans, led by Reps. Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) and Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), said in a letter to Harvard interim president Alan Garber.
Critics have long slammed as insufficient a series of initiatives that Harvard created in response to rising anti-Semitism on campus following the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7. Ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned earlier this year in large part due to controversy over her response to anti-Semitic incidents on the Ivy League campus.
The Republican lawmakers denounced the latest recommendations as "weaker, less detailed, and less comprehensive" than those presented by a previous task force in December.
"Instead of offering a tangible plan to address anti-Semitism at Harvard," the lawmakers said, "the task force’s most specific and actionable recommendations are to organize public talks on respectful dialogue and religious relations, increase the availability of hot kosher meals, and to circulate guidance about accommodating Jewish religious observance and a calendar of Jewish holidays."
The university, the letter continued, "has a serious problem with anti-Semitism on its campus, including 'derision and exclusion' of Israeli students, discrimination and harassment of students by faculty and teaching fellows, and political litmus tests in extracurricular student life."
The lawmakers urged Harvard to "recognize the insufficiency of its efforts to date, publicly adopt the [previous task force's] existing recommendations, and announce concrete steps to implement them in advance of the fall semester."
Harvard first came under scrutiny last fall when more than 30 student organizations signed a controversial letter holding "the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence" in the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Then-president Gay, who waited days before condemning the Hamas attack and the letter, said during testimony before Congress that calling for the genocide of Jews would not necessarily violate Harvard’s code of conduct.