Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a top Republican, will no longer accept fellowships to Harvard University over what he says is “anti-Semitic vitriol” on campus in the wake of the Hamas terror attack on Israel.
He adds the school’s tepid response to protests is now a “moral stain” on its reputation.
“I cannot condone the dangerous anti-Semitism that has taken root on your campus,” Hogan wrote in a letter to Harvard President Claudine Gay that he also posted to X, the former Twitter platform.
“While these students have a right to free speech,” he added Monday, “they do not have a right to have hate speech go unchallenged by your institution.”
He said he was previously “honored” by the fellowships to both Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the T.H. Chan School of Public Health — but he will no longer accept them “especially,” he added, after “more than 30 Harvard student organizations attempting to justify and celebrate Hamas’ terrorism against innocent Israeli and American civilians” posted an open letter right after the Oct. 7 ambush.
That letter, by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups, read, in part: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all the unfolding violence.”
That open letter continues to roil the Cambridge campus into a third week.
In his social media post, Hogan — a potential 2024 third-party presidential contender — said he told Gay Monday that he “must withdraw” an offer to “participate in fellowships” next month due to what he said was “dangerous anti-Semitism” on campus. He told her the Hamas attack was “horrific.”
He added he had just completed a “similar” fellowship at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics “just last week,” but he won’t be planning to come to Harvard next.
“The horrific terrorist attack was the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust and it should be universally condemned as exactly what it is: pure evil,” he wrote Gay.
He said, “Harvard’s failure to immediately and forcefully denounce the anti-Semitic vitriol from these students is in my opinion a moral stain on the University.”
He ends the letter by stating: “The lessons of history are clear: we must all do our part to take a clear stand in the face of genocidal acts against the Jewish people or any group. There is no ‘both sides’ when it comes to the murder, rape of innocent women and children.”
He adds, “there is no room for justification or equivocation.”
Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
His post shot past 1 million views before the sun set Monday.
Harvard has not responded and the Kennedy School’s social media feed on X was about a “special symposium marking the inauguration” of Gay as president of the college.
Gay, in two statements in the wake of the open letter by pro-Palestinian groups on campus, said she condemned the “terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas” while also saying “students have the right to speak for themselves.”
Her response has not stopped others from pulling support from the university — including a “stunned and sickened” Wexner Foundation, a leading voice for the Jewish faith, which is pulling its support of $2 million-plus for Harvard.
