A group of 170 Jewish and non-Jewish Harvard faculty members have published an open letter stating that overt antisemitism has gone underground at the university, becoming a more “insidious” form of Jew-hatred.
Following two high-profile incidents – the opening of Title VI lawsuits by the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Health and Human Services and the publication of a Harvard internal report acknowledging that Jewish students face pervasive bias and intimidation – the university has outwardly worked hard to prove that antisemitism is under control.
On May 20, 2026, Harvard released a statement saying it has taken substantive, proactive steps to address the root causes of antisemitism and that its efforts “demonstrate the very opposite of deliberate indifference.”
The 170 professors and faculty staff have now sent the letter claiming that antisemitism persists, albeit in a more covert way.
“We believe that the situation has improved to some extent recently, but challenges remain,” reads the letter.
“Over the past year, Jews and Israelis at Harvard have reported hiding their identity, including by wearing a baseball cap over their kippot, tucking in their Star of David, and scrubbing Jewish-sounding names or activities from their resumes.”
Harvard antisemitism is more underground, though student incidents continue
The letter also cites students’ accounts documented in the 300-page Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias report.
For example, an Israeli undergraduate student was told to leave a classroom by an instructor because her nationality made other students uncomfortable, and another Jewish undergraduate student was told she “looks just as dumb as her nose is crooked.”
“One should not turn a blind eye to the fact that many Jewish and Israeli students have suffered harassment and discrimination over the last few years, degrading their Harvard experience,” the letter continues.
Two signatories of the letter, Dr. Mark C. Poznansky and Dr. Jacqueline A. Hart, penned an article in The Free Press saying, “When hate turns quiet on campus, it can mean one of two things: First, that the hate has been eliminated from the university, or second, that it has morphed into more insidious forms.
“What we, as Jewish and Israeli faculty, staff, and students at Harvard University, have witnessed over the past year appears to be the latter.”
The two faculty members acknowledged that incidents of overt antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias have diminished throughout this academic year at Harvard but said that Jewish students still report feeling uncomfortable and isolated.
Jewish students feel the need to hide their identities
They also said that these students feel compelled to hide their full identities on campus in order to avoid ostracization and bias.
“Unsurprisingly, they report these choices and circumstances while insisting on anonymity for fear of retribution,” the two wrote.
“We write in solidarity with all Jewish and Israeli students, especially those who have personally encountered bias. We see you. We hear you. We will continue to stand with you and stand up for you.”