Harvard adds Jewish affinity celebration to grad plans after university rocked by antisemitism allegations
After being excluded last year, Jewish students will have their own graduation “affinity celebration” at Harvard University — which has been rocked by allegations of virulent antisemitism.
The affinity celebrations – graduation events honoring an array of identity groups, including LGBTQ+, black, first generation-low income, and veteran students — will be hosted by Harvard’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging and be held in May, according to documents obtained by the National Review.
The events do not replace the official graduation ceremonies, which are still held for all students graduating from the university’s different colleges.
The “Celebration Recognizing Arab Graduates, the Celebration Recognizing Jewish Graduates, and the Celebration Recognizing Veteran Graduates are being planned in collaboration with student groups and campus partners,” one note viewed by the outlet read.
Harvard’s affinity celebrations faced scrutiny last year, when conservative activist Christopher Rufo posted on X that the university had deleted the event schedule from its website – and that Jewish students did not have their own event.
Jewish members of Harvard’s Class of 2024 can now expect their own event – but only after the university weather a damning antisemitism scandal in the wake of the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7.
Following a disastrous appearance before Congress and accusations of plagiarism, Harvard President Claudine Gay announced in January that she was stepping down from her plum position – though she remains on the faculty.
The renowned institution also saw its total applications drop by 5% from the year before.
As the semester winds down, some students feel that the addition of a Jewish celebration will only perpetuate underlying antisemitism.
“Rather than acknowledge the harmful ways in which Harvard DEI has contributed to campus antisemitism, the university further marginalizes individuals into groups of race, ethnicity, and religion,” Harvard Divinity School student Shabbos Kestenbaum told the National Review.
“Harvard DEI is simply out of control,” he insisted.
In February, Kestenbaum told the House Education and Workforce Committee that Jewish students on thee Cambridge campus were taunted with threats and arguments that “too many damn Jews run this country,” the National Review added.
At one point, a Harvard employee even posted a video of themselves with a machete and a picture of Kestenbaum’s face, he claimed.
When he complained to the DEI office, Kestenabum said, they told him the incident “falls outside their purview.”
Gabriel Kelvin, a student at the Harvard Kennedy School, told the National Review that there is a key difference between people with shared identities congregating versus discriminating.
“If I were an American going to school overseas, at a school that did not speak my native language and there were a few other American students, I would probably like to get together and celebrate my graduation with my fellow American students,” he reasoned.
“When it gets to identity-based groups, that’s where I get a little confused — especially when you’re segregating groups along racial lines. If it’s led and initiated by what’s perceived as the majority, it’s discriminatory, whereas if it’s organized and initiated by the minority group, it’s considered ‘affirmative’ and ‘affinity-based’ and all those nice buzzwords,” he continued.
“There’s no secret that Harvard has an extraordinarily liberal student body, and I am a hundred percent confident that ideology is going to permeate through every single aspect of those ceremonies,” Kelvin said.
Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC.), the chairperson of the Education and Workforce Committee, told the outlet that she thinks all affinity celebrations are controversial.
“Graduation ceremonies should unite students. Instead, Harvard is dividing its student body even further by playing into identity politics and radical DEI ideologies, she said.
Foxx did not appear to comment on the fact that the affinity events were merely supplemental celebrations, not replacements for the overall graduation proceedings.
