Harvard University was knocked on its back foot on Tuesday after a long-awaited internal report painted a grim picture of campus antisemitism. 

The report, which included reviews of both antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias on campus, divulges the “severe problems” that Jewish students at Harvard faced in the classroom, on social media, and via the anti-Israel campus protests that emerged following Hamas’s October 7 attack. Members of the Muslim and Arab communities, on the other hand, felt “abandoned and silenced.”

The damning nature of the findings prompted Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, to describe the 2023-2024 academic year as “disappointing and painful” and to apologize for the school’s missteps. In a letter accompanying the 500-page report, Mr. Garber wrote that he was “sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community. 

The task forces behind the antisemitism and anti-Muslim report consist of unnamed Harvard faculty and students. They closed out their respective views by offering dozens of proposed reforms, many of which are related to creating an academic and social environment that is more open to differing opinions. 

Mr. Garber pledged to adopt some of the task force’s proposals and said the university’s deans were currently “reviewing” the report’s recommendations “concerning admissions, appointments, curriculum and orientation and training programs.” He also vowed to launch a university-wide initiative to “promote and support viewpoint diversity.”

Such efforts mirror some of the demands issued by the Trump administration earlier this month, signaling that the university may be softening its approach to the federal government. Parallels can be drawn between the administration’s calls for the school to overhaul its admissions process, and to review viewpoint diversity in both its curriculum and in its student body. 

The review comes just one day after the Ivy League school adopted two MAGA-friendly reforms. On Monday, Harvard announced that its Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging would be undergoing a major makeover, beginning with a new name, devoid of DEI buzzwords. 

Now the office of “Community and Campus Life,” the group will  operate under a new mandate focused on bringing students together based on their backgrounds and experiences and “not the broad demographic groups to which they belong,” Sherri Charleston, who will remain as the office’s head, wrote in the email that was reviewed by the Crimson.  

Ms. Charleston in her note referenced a campus-wide survey which showed that students had become increasingly uncomfortable with expressing diverging viewpoints or connecting across ideological lines. The findings, she wrote, indicated the need for Harvard to reexamine how it fosters community and to focus on supporting free expression, the Crimson reported. 

Just a few hours later, the revamped office announced that it would no longer host or fund affinity group commencement celebrations for this year’s graduating class. Harvard’s segregated graduation ceremonies — which, last year, were organized for Arab, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, first-generation, low-income, and Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Desi graduates — have been criticized by the federal government for violating civil rights laws.

Both reforms align with the administration’s demand for the school to “immediately shutter” all DEI “programs, offices, committees, positions, and initiatives.” That was just one of the many policies proposed by the government that Harvard chose to defy, prompting the administration to revoke $2.2 billion in federal funds and kickstarting the legal battle between America’s oldest and wealthiest college and the federal government. 

The policies prompted one higher education scholar, Steve McGuire to ponder whether Harvard might be softening its approach to the government’s efforts. “The resistance is sure looking a lot like compliance,” he mused. 

Although Harvard’s decision to go head-to-head with the federal government has drawn praise from some alumni and academics, several of Harvard’s most influential donors have been privately urging the school to settle its dispute with the government rather than take the case to court.

Further, with the timeline of the lawsuit shaping up, it has become clear that Harvard is unlikely to regain access to the $2.2 billion dollars in frozen federal funding at least through late July, when opening arguments are set to take place. Harvard maintains that the funding cuts will force researchers to halt life-saving projects in fields like cancer, heart disease, neurodegenerative disease, obesity and diabetes, and others.