Harvard released its long-awaited reports on campus antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias on April 29, along with an apology for the tense campus environment of the past two years. “The 2023-24 academic year was disappointing and painful,” President Alan M. Garber wrote in an email introducing the reports. “I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community.”
The task forces were convened by then-interim President Garber in January 2024 and published their initial findings in June 2024, but publication of the final reports was continually delayed. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights had demanded that Harvard turn over the reports by May 2: their publication came three days before that deadline.
The two reports fit together awkwardly. In some respects, they align: each task force calls for stronger anti-bullying policies, more respectful-discourse programs, and greater consistency in academic and disciplinary policies. Each report shares stories of students treated with disdain, attacked on social media, pressured to hide their identities, and pushed to the periphery of campus life. Each asks that the studied group’s suffering be assessed in its own right, not compared to the other group’s.
But in many ways, the two reports diverge and even contradict one another. The anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias task force (“the anti-Muslim task force,” from here on) recommends increasing the study of Palestine; the antisemitism and anti-Israel bias task force (“the antisemitism task force”) criticizes the University for offering one-sided, pro-Palestine courses. The anti-Muslim task force relays student concerns about a “Palestine exception to free speech,” whereby speech related to Palestine is overpoliced; the antisemitism task force disputes the existence of such a standard, instead saying that pro-Palestine perspectives are frequently available, while Israel is widely criticized in courses. The anti-Muslim task force asks the University to consider its stance on “divestment, disclosure, and engagement” with Israeli companies; the antisemitism task force notes that the divestment movement has heightened campus tensions and alienated Israeli and Jewish students.
Most strikingly, the two reports sometimes interpret the same programs and events in very different ways.
Most strikingly, the two reports sometimes interpret the same programs and events in very different ways. Each report, for instance, discusses the Harvard Divinity School’s Religion and Public Life program, which was launched in October 2020 with the stated goal of helping leaders assess the civic implications of religion but is now largely focused on Israel and Palestine. Two top program leaders quit in January, and one of its two main initiatives was suspended in April.
The anti-Muslim task force says the program condemned antisemitism and was wrongly maligned: its “stated intent to present balanced perspectives has led to accusations of antisemitism…[which] feeds into a troubling narrative where being Arab or Muslim is often unfairly equated with antisemitism.” But the antisemitism task force says that criticisms of the program are deserved, writing that it offers “politicized, one-sided treatments of controversial issues and the embrace of a pedagogy of ‘de-zionization,’” which “harms the learning environment for all students, and especially for many Jewish and Israeli students.”
The two reports are broad—532 pages combined—and include the histories of each group on campus, timelines of campus Israel-Palestine protests throughout the past four decades, logs of hateful incidents, collections of student anecdotes from surveys and listening sessions, and recommendations. The task forces were not charged with investigating, verifying, or litigating campus hatred—other campus and government groups are analyzing such incidents. Their recommendations span admissions, academics, administration, and student life.
Some of the most concrete—and concerning—passages in both reports come from a survey issued jointly by the two task forces in the spring of 2024, which found that most respondents (from a voluntary, self-selected group) “do not feel comfortable expressing their political views and believe doing so would jeopardize their academic and professional careers.” As the task forces wrote in a joint introduction to the survey: “On nearly every measure, Muslim and Jewish identifiers are less comfortable sharing their views and are more likely to report experience with discrimination than Christians and Atheists.”
One stark example was physical safety: among the students who responded to the survey, 56 percent of Muslims, 26 percent of Jews, 12 percent of Christians, and 6 percent of atheists said they felt physically unsafe on campus. Another was the ability to speak freely: of the student survey respondents, 80 percent of Muslims, 67 percent of Jews, 53 percent of Christians, and 41 percent of atheists said they felt uncomfortable expressing their opinions to others on campus.
The scope of each committee grew over time. The antisemitism task force added “anti-Israeli bias” to its name in June 2024 to “better reflect the Task Force’s charge.” (The report notes that Israeli students—Jewish and non-Jewish—have faced particular hardship on campus.) The antisemitism task force also dedicated significant efforts to analyzing the status of anti-Zionist Jews on campus, who faced criticism from both Jews and non-Jews. The anti-Muslim task force added “anti-Palestinian bias” to its name to reflect “the impact on…many community members facing bias due to their pro-Palestinian stance.”
These reports do not exist in a vacuum. Harvard’s seemingly slow response to campus chaos opened the door for people somewhat removed from campus to express their thoughts. Several groups took it upon themselves to investigate campus antisemitism: Bill Ackman ’88, M.B.A. ’92, in the fall of 2023; the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance in the summer of 2024; and the Trump administration this spring (although without any evidence, so far, of having investigated campus events or conditions independently). As many groups looked toward Harvard, they demanded very different changes. The antisemitism task force wrote, “Since Fall 2023, different factions at Harvard have fought to force various University leaders to make statements, invest, divest, hire, fire, doxx, un-doxx, discipline students and undiscipline them.”
Both task forces condemned some tactics by outside groups. The anti-Muslim report discusses the doxxing of pro-Palestine student activists and notes that many students felt that the University did not adequately defend its students. The antisemitism report begins with an addendum asking “external parties, even if well-intentioned”—a reference many have taken to mean the Trump administration—not to “seek to compel adoption of some of our proposed reforms.” It continued, “If they do so, they will make it more difficult for Harvard to fix itself.”
In his community-wide email announcing their release, President Garber wrote that the reports are leading to concrete action: in line with the groups’ recommendations, the University is starting a research project on antisemitism, supporting a historical analysis of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians at Harvard, and speeding up the establishment of an initiative to promote viewpoint diversity.
The language the University uses to describe Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel has subtly changed, too. In the fall of 2023, after then-President Claudine Gay’s initial email message on October 10 garnered widespread criticism, she continually and explicitly referred to Hamas’s incursion as a terrorist attack. But in his April 29 email introducing the reports, Garber referred to “the grave, extensive impact of the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel,” not using the word “terrorist.”
Each task force delivered preliminary recommendations in June 2024, and the University has acted on some of those suggestions. Throughout the past year, Harvard clarified its protest rules, announced a new policy of declining to comment on political matters, and initiated programming on constructive dialogue. In the full reports, each group provides more recommendations. The antisemitism task force recommends admitting students who have open minds and a willingness to disagree; providing orientation for students about open dialogue; developing rules that bar instructors from refusing to teach students of certain ideologies or encouraging certain political stances; enacting clearer and stricter protest rules; and inviting robust study of Israel-Palestine through jointly taught courses.
The anti-Muslim task force, meanwhile, recommends providing resources for doxxed students; establishing Muslim prayer spaces on Harvard’s campuses; encouraging student free speech that aligns with time, place, and manner restrictions; promoting greater consistency across schools in discipline; and enriching curricular offerings in Middle Eastern and North African, Palestinian, and Islamic studies.
These weighty reports will likely capture the attention of students, faculty, and alumni as well as legislators, journalists, and donors. They raise an important question: How will Harvard balance the competing interests of these two groups and the disparate voices seeking to influence campus life?
