Harvard University announced that it would pause a research partnership with Birzeit University, a Palestinian school, following public pressure, the Harvard Crimson reported last week.
The decision to suspend ties with the West Bank university comes as pro-Palestinian activists at campuses across the United States and the world have long called on their schools to sever ties with Israel. In 2022, the Crimson’s editorial board endorsed an Israel boycott, and its graduate student union followed suit in November 2023, shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
In the wake of Oct. 7, a parallel campaign at Harvard has called on the school to end a public health-oriented partnership with Birzeit. The campaign was endorsed by former Harvard President Larry Summers as well as Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Harvard alum who has vocally condemned pro-Palestinian protests and campus antisemitism.
The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance called Birzeit “terrorist-supporting,” citing examples of praise for Hamas on campus as well as an instance when an Israeli Jewish reporter for Haaretz was asked to leave the school.
Last summer, the Harvard School of Public Health launched an internal review into the partnership, which was between the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB) and Birzeit, and decided to pause the program. The review committee will release a final report in the coming weeks.
Harvard’s decision comes as colleges and universities across the country, as well as their students, face increased scrutiny from the Trump administration over policing antisemitism on their campuses. Earlier this month, the Department of Education sent letters to 60 universities, including Harvard, alerting them of investigations into alleged antisemitism on their campuses.
As it pauses the program at Birzeit, Harvard is due to grow its ties with Israel. In January, as part of two settlements with Jewish groups claiming the school had fostered an antisemitic environment, Harvard pledged to partner with an Israeli university.
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