Top US universities face funding fallout after students’ anti-Israel comments

America’s most prestigious universities are losing key donors over the perceived anti-Semitism of student groups.

One day after Hamas’s brutal murder of 1,300 Israelis on Oct 7, a coalition of 34 Harvard student groups released an open letter saying Israel was “entirely responsible” for the attack and expressing no sympathy for the victims.

The head of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, had to make as many as three different statements to denounce the Hamas assault as fury grew over her students’ letter.

Two weeks into the job, she initially appeared to equivocate, lamenting the “death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas”.

Jake Auchincloss, a Democratic congressman and Harvard alumnus, said that the students had shown themselves to be “morally depraved” – but the statement from Harvard’s leadership was “moral cowardice”.

On Oct 10, Ms Gay issued another statement saying “let there be no doubt I condemn the terrorist atrocities” of Hamas.

The move came as major donors and alumni denounced the comments from the students, and several billionaire philanthropists cut ties.

Among them was a non-profit group founded by Leslie Wexner, the former Victoria’s Secret billionaire, and his wife Abigail. The Wexner Foundation alleged the school has been “tiptoeing” over Hamas’s attacks.

“We are stunned and sickened at the dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians by terrorists,” the foundation wrote.

Larry Summers, a former Harvard president and US treasury secretary, condemned the university’s “failure to disassociate the university and condemn the statement”. He queried why it could not be more forceful when it had previously spoken out about the murder of George Floyd and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In an interview with the New Yorker, the authors of the letter, which was since repudiated by many of the groups and students that had allegedly put their name to it, refused to apologise.

They refused to acknowledge fault in blaming Israel for the Hamas attack and expressing no sympathy for its victims.

“Our statement was not intended to do that [acknowledge the horrific nature of the attack]” one of them, who gave the name Nadia, said. Instead, she maintained, they meant to examine the politics of the region and “root of the violence”. Anyone shocked by Israel’s ultimate guilt struck her as “deeply misinformed”.

There has been similar controversy at the University of Pennsylvania – commonly known as UPenn and, like Harvard among the Ivy League institutions – where a foundation funded by Jon Huntsman, a former US ambassador, said it was severing ties over the alleged “silence” over anti-Semitism.

“The university’s silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel (when the only response should be outright condemnation) is a new low. Silence is antisemitism, and antisemitism is hate, the very thing higher ed was built to obviate,” Mr Huntsman wrote in a letter published by the university’s student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian. “Consequently, Huntsman Foundation will close its chequebook on all future giving to Penn.”

Reports said the college was already in hot water after hosting a Palestine Writes Literature Festival last month that allegedly included speakers with a history of anti-Semitic comments.

Later, the university apologised for not stepping in and condemning the speakers. “The university did not, and emphatically does not, endorse these speakers or their views,” said Liz Magill, the president of UPenn.

Adding to the pressure, another powerful former student, Marc Rowan, the CEO of Apollo Global Management, called for the resignation of both UPenn’s president and chairman of the board of trustees. In an op-ed to the student newspaper, Mr Rowan also urged his fellow alumni to reduce their normal contributions to university to just $1 “so that no one misses the point”.

Some conservatives believe the row triggered by the comments made by the students at Harvard is an opening to push for an overhaul of what students are taught.

“I think the moment is there,” Mike Gonzalez, a fellow at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, told The Telegraph.

“Will enough people wake up and ask ‘who exactly have we handed the keys to society to? Who are those professors?’”

The row has also jolted conservative media circles, where Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News anchor, condemned Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP presidential hopeful, who had opposed calls to deny job opportunities to the Harvard students who wrote the letter.

“The Harvard student groups who co-signed the anti-Israel letter are simple fools,” he said. “But it’s not productive for companies to blacklist kids for being members of student groups that make dumb political statements on campus. Colleges are spaces for students to experiment with ideas and sometimes kids join clubs that endorse boneheadedly wrong ideas.”

Ms Kelly said in response: “You’ve got to be kidding me. They sided with terrorists who murdered children and old women. You’re not clear on this as someone who wants to be president?”