A mix of Georgian and Victorian-era inspired academic buildings are spread across the Northeastern United States. Besides the entitled exclusivity in the admissions process, the unreasonable fee structure and the decorated syllabus, there is also a sadistic appeal to the Gothic appearance these institutions boast of.
But, to quote Shakespeare, all that glitters is not gold.
The holier-than-thou attitude over the decades of US’s Ivy Leagues – touted as the world’s most esteemed and prestigious universities – was brought to its knees when presidents of two of the three universities, Harvard and Penn, and the third being the high-ranking MIT, refused to condemn calls for genocide of Jews at a congressional hearing on 5th December.
On 5th December, a congressional hearing on “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism” was held in Washington, D.C.
At the hearing, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik confronted the Presidents of Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Her specific yes or no question to them was, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s rules or code of conduct regarding bullying or harassment?”
MIT President Sally Kornbluth responded saying that “if targeted at individuals and not making public statements”. When asked for a yes or no answer, Kornbluth said that she has not heard calls for the genocide of Jews on MIT campus.
The Congresswoman questioned, “But you have chants for intifada?” To this, Kornbluth replied, “I have heard chants which can be antisemitic depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people.”
She said that such calls would be investigated as harassment only “if pervasive and severe”.
President (now former) of University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill’s response came with wide smiles and smirks. She said, “If the speech turns into conduct it can be harassment, yes.”
When questioned again, Magill said that if such speech is directed and severe and pervasive, it is harassment. When asked if she means a yes, Magill said it is a context-dependent decision.
She maintained that “if the speech becomes conduct, it is harassment”. Magill finally responded with a yes after much struggle. President of Harvard, Dr Claudine Gay reiterated the same chorus in answer to the question.
“It (the call for genocide of Jews) can be (violate rules) depending on the context,” Dr Gay said. When asked what the context is she said, “targeted as an individual, targeted at an individual.”
“Antisemitic rhetoric when it crosses into conduct, it amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct and we do take action,” Dr Gay said.
The roughly 3 minute 31 second long video of the hearing took social media by the storm prompting angry responses from netizens. The matter has escalated with key stakeholders demanding accountability from the presidents of the respective universities.
President Liz Magill of University of Penn has resigned amid mounting pressure.
The focus of the hearing by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce was the rise in cases of antisemitism reported on campuses across the US and the universities’ response to the same.
This comes in the backdrop of the 7th October terrorist attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israel killing at least 1,400 people and kidnapping more than 200 to Gaza. Israel has since vowed to avenge the death of its people and has launched an all-out offensive against the terrorist group.
A selective support for Palestinians toeing the Hamas line has since mushroomed in campuses across the United States. In the name of human rights of Palestinians, the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel has been justified on the campuses of these so-called prestigious institutions with absolutely no repercussions from the administration.
On 11th October, four days after the brutal attack on Israel, a group of Harvard students submitted a letter in support of Palestine. This prompted several corporate institutions, particularly those with Jewish heads, warning Harvard that they will not hire students supporting Hamas. Several Jewish donors to the universities also threatened to withdraw their donations.
On 25th October, Jewish students at Cooper Union college in New York had to be locked inside library for their own safety as pro-Palestinian students tried to break down the door chanting “Free Palestine”. The Jewish students had to be escorted out through tunnels using the back door.
On 18th October, a “Stop the genocide in Gaza” die-in demonstration was reportedly organised by the Harvard Business School. A video from the demonstration showed a Jewish student mobbed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators screaming “shame, shame, shame”.
On 24th October, an antisemitic slogan was displayed on the wall of the library of George Washington University. It read, “Free Palestine From The River To The Sea.” Another message read, “Glory to our martyrs” and one read, “End the siege on Gaza”.
While several academic institutes across America, both Ivy League and, public and private, saw a dramatic rise in hostility against Jewish students, these have turned out to be symptoms of an underlying disease.
Antisemitism on US campuses before 7th October terrorist attack on Israel
A complaint letter via e-mail by the Jewish rights group ‘Brandeis Center’ to the University of Pennsylvania alleged that the latter had allowed its campus to become a hostile environment for Jewish students and a magnet for antisemites.
It pointed to a festival that was organised by the university titled “Palestine Writes Festival” which hosted antisemitic speakers. Notably, this festival came days before the terrorist attacks proving the antisemitism is pre-existing sentiment on campuses in the US.
The letter read, “In the days leading up to the September Festival, anti-Semitic graffiti and a Penn student’s violent attack on Penn’s Hillel signaled trouble to come for Jewish students and institutions on campus.”
Surprisingly, the festival was organised on the same day as the Jewish festival ‘Jewish High Holy Days of Awe”. Meanwhile, Magill, despite concerns raised by several members, stood by the event citing “free speech”.
Even now, as recently as 9th December (Saturday), Jewish students in the Penn University are being subjected to chants like “We are Hamas” whereas openly antisemitic professors and staff are still employed with the university.
Forget even the recent decades, antisemitism on US campuses goes back nearly a century. In the 1950s, Stanford University reportedly tried to limit the proportion of its Jewish students.
Stanford University is located on the West Coast of the US and is not an Ivy League university but ranks higher than Ivy League varsities.
Another report reveals that the Seth Low Junior College (SLJC) near the Columbia University was “created with the explicit goal of reducing the amount of Jewish students on the CU campus”. It was built in the early 20th century.
As per the report, the “enrollment of Jewish students at Columbia College after Seth Low Junior College’s opening dropped from 40 to 25 per cent”. Moreover, on one hand, half of the total Columbia College applicants were accepted, only one in six Jewish applicants were admitted in the early 20th century.
This was reportedly the case in most East Coast schools in the US.
One might think that on-campus antisemitism is an elephantine problem which dwarfs any other controversies surrounding academic campuses in America.
Not really. The political invasion of campuses in America which is being exposed with hatred for Jews and Israel has only compounded their already declining credibility.
The larger-than-life projected image of these institutions in the US has been a facade which has been maintained through endowments, donations and charities flowing in like dirt, open political biases, crippling admissions fees thereby giving academic access to only a handful, racial and gender persecution, and woke agendas.
Racism on US campuses
You’d be surprised, if not shocked, to know that it was only in June this year that the US Supreme Court ruled that universities can no longer determine race as grounds for admissions.
Up till the US SC verdict, race was still very much a part of the admissions process in the United States centered around the idea of “positive discrimination”.
And yet, the move was decried by the left-liberal media in the US as the end of “affirmative action”.
Racism has been rampant, like a regular petty crime, on US campuses including the so-called esteemed campuses. This has only served to fan left wing politics in the US where voices are raised prominently when incidents involve a black victim.
But when Asian or Indian students are subjected to racism, the same woke left wing crowd goes into hiding. Safe to say, US campuses are not merely dealing with crimes of unabated racism but several politicised versions of it.
In 2020, Princeton University had acknowledged that systemic racism exists on its campus following which an investigation was launched by the Trump administration.
Sexual assault cases on campus
Columbia University graduate Emma Sulkowicz made headlines in 2015 by staging a protest based on performance art against alleged sexual harassment.
Sulkowicz walked around the campus carrying a 50-pound mattress and across the stage during her graduation to symbolise the weight carried around by victims of sexual assault.
She had alleged that she was sexually assaulted by a classmate of rape during her sophomore year in 2013. The accused was cleared of the charges following a hearing by the university.
In 2017, three professors in Dartmouth’s department of psychological and brain sciences were accused of sexual abuse and misconduct. The professors reportedly resigned or retired following recommendations for dismissal.
However, the seven women who levelled the charges alleged that the college had failed to protect its students from sexual harassment and sexual assault.
A scandal broke out in Cornell University last year exposing alleged incidents of sexual assault and druggings at off-campus fraternity parties. A crime alert was issued early in November 2022 by the campus police responding to four different reports of students being drugged and at least once case of sexual assault.
In May 2022, a longtime professor at Princeton named Joshua Katz was suspended after investigation revealed that he had sex with one of his undergraduate students years ago.
In 2021, several complaints surfaced against the professor from mid-2000s alleging disturbing cases of allegedly propositioning undergraduates for sexual relationships.
In 1986, a shocking scandal was uncovered in Brown University wherein students were allegedly linked to a sex worker ring in Providence. Multiple students were charged with sex work crimes and drug possession.
Woke politics on campuses
According to The Washington Post, Harvard in 2022 warned all undergraduate students that “cisheterosexism,” “fatphobia” and “using the wrong pronouns” amounted to “abuse” and perpetuated “violence” on campus.
In May this year, the student government at the Northwestern University in Illinois “indefinitely” froze the funds of the College Republicans over an event poster showing conservative speaker James Lindsay, critical of transgenderism.
After an uproar that has been dragging in the US over participation of trans athletes in women’s sports, a bill was approved by the House Republicans in April this year barring such transgender athletes whose biological sex awas assigned at birth as male from competing on girls’ or women’s sports teams.
As if the use of a thousand pronouns for individually-preferred “gender” identification has not disadvantaged academically-focused students enough, transgenders participating against females in sports has most definitely put the latter at a physical disadvantage.
Varsity Blues scandal
High-profile names involving celebrities and politicians and their aides were at the center of a massive admissions scandal across universities.
College athletics coaches and test administrators accepted bribes and donations in exchange for recruiting students. The mastermind, William Rick Singer, was paid a whopping $25 million by celebrity parents to bribe coaches and university administrators to designate their children as purported athletic recruits to facilitate their admission.
Singer allegedly created fake charities to facilitate money for “donations” to various colleges including Yale University, Georgetown, Stanford and the University of Southern California.
The big names involved in the scandal include Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman, Mossimo Giannulli, William H Macy, Michelle Janavs and many more. One of the more prominent names is Gordon Ernst, former Georgetown University tennis coach known for having coached the Obamas.
Rankings scandal
In 2022, a professor at Columbia University, Michael Thaddeus, published a paper accusing the varsity of manipulating data to project that it spent more on research and instruction than it actually did.
This, reportedly, in turn is suspected to have played a role in the Ivy League institution’s jump in the rankings. The university later admitted that they had reported incorrect data but refused to admit that it was done to improve rankings.
As per the professor’s report, the varsity’s rankings moved up from no. 18 in 1988 to no 2 by 2022. Following the controversy, Columbia, Yale and Harvard announced that they would no longer participate in the rankings in the future.
The left wing bias on US campuses
The rise of wokeism on university campuses in US can easily be attributed to left-wing bias. In fact, it can be considered a branch of the same tree.
According to a poll, Republicans have the least amount of confidence (19%) in higher education in the United States whereas Democrats have the highest level of confidence at 59%.
Another related survey reportedly found that 77% of college presidents in the US agree that the perception of colleges as intolerant of conservative views has impacted people’s attitudes about higher education.
Questionable source of funding to US varsities
According to a report, US universities have been receiving funding from Qatar particularly in the period between 2001 and 2021, “precisely after the September 11 attacks”.
As per the report based on a study published in 2022, a staggering $4.7 billion was injected into universities in the United States. Moreover, the recipients did not report part of the money received as required by the law.
“Qatar has reportedly become the largest foreign donor to American academic in the two decades since 9/11,” the report reads.
In 2020, the Trump administration alleged that top US universities have “massively underreported” foreign funding from China, Russia and other nations described as “foreign adversaries”.
According to another report, Saudi Arabia owned oil company ARAMCO has been funding programmes in US universities like Princeton since as early as the 1950s. Moreover, Middle East studies programme in US institutions reportedly receive specifically from Arab countries to “advance their political agendas”.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Saudis have seen such donations as a way to acquire goodwill, legitimacy and support in U.S. academia,” the report quotes NYU professor Zachary Lockman.
Interestingly, it must be noted that some of the biggest names like George Soros and the Rothschilds, which bestow donations in billions to the US acadmia, are Jewish. And it is thus a wonder as to how these institutions, funded equally well by the left-liberal globalist disruptors like their Middle Eastern counterparts, have been unable to counter antisemitism. Yet, when questions are raised against these conglomerates, they coin the term antisemitism through their rights groups and NGOs in their defence.
All in all, Universities in the US are too good to be true for their realities have been exposed for all to see since a long time. It is time to stop trusting every colonial infrastructure just because they put on a good show of elitist exclusivity.