Hillel Scrambles Amid Backlash After Jewish Campus Org Defends Harvard in Antisemitism Case

The world’s foremost organization for Jewish students rushed Thursday to undo what public figures are calling a “shocking” and “depraved” legal filing saying Harvard University is “on the right track” in its response to charges of entrenched antisemitism on campus.The move came just a day after lawyers for Hillel International had filed the 22-page brief supporting Harvard in its defense of a court order restoring $2.7 billion in federal funding. The Trump administration pulled the funding last year, saying the university had failed to protect Jewish students.“The brief was filed without having gone through our internal review process. We are now actively working with the court to withdraw it,” a spokesperson for Hillel International told The New York Sun in an emailed statement Thursday. A motion to withdraw appeared on the docket of the First Circuit Court of Appeals at 1:10 pm, though representatives for Hillel had previously told The Harvard Crimson newspaper they would do it “as soon as the court opens in the morning.”“Unbeknownst to undersigned counsel, authorization to file the brief was provided to counsel without the brief having gone through a required internal review process within Hillel,” the motion to withdraw states.Hillel’s spokesperson did not say whether the withdrawal came in response to a backlash, notably a series of social media posts by a former Harvard Divinity School student. Alexander Shabbos Kestenbaum led a 2024 lawsuit alleging the university had failed to protect him and six other students from antisemitic harassment and discrimination; Harvard settled with Mr. Kestenbaum and the other students last year.Mr. Kestenbaum, who now works for advocacy group PragerU, took credit for the retraction Wednesday night, telling his 72,000 followers on X: “I spoke with Hillel CEO Adam Lehman and am glad he is retracting their support of Harvard. Public pressure works.”Earlier in the day, Mr. Kestenbaum, himself a former president of the Queens College chapter of Hillel, urged Jewish donors to direct their support elsewhere. “Rather than take responsibility for their failure to respond to the explosion of antisemitism on American campuses post October 7th, Hillel has instead decided to support the perpetrators,” he wrote.Mr. Kestenbaum was not alone in criticizing the brief. The solicitor general of Iowa, Eric Wessan, called the brief “genuinely shocking” in a post asserting that Hillel “is abandoning its students to defend one of the highest profile antisemitic universities.”Mr. Wessan later posted a clown face next to the text of the motion to withdraw.The contested brief called on the appeals court to uphold a September 2025 ruling that ordered the federal government to make good on approximately $2.7 billion worth of federal research funding previously granted to Harvard’s researchers, which the Trump administration froze or terminated starting in April last year. The document, which Hillel filed as an organization with particular interest or expertise in the subject of the case, cited several changes Harvard has implemented since anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric and incidents rocked the nation’s oldest university following Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s military response. Harvard’s Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias crafted a multipronged program aimed at building “a campus where Jewish students — and every student — can thrive,” Hillel said, adding that, while the university still has more work to do, “Harvard has made real headway on that front.” The brief also expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s motives in withdrawing the funding. “Indeed, the government appears more interested in vastly reshaping universities — or even destroying them — than combating the specific problem of antisemitism within them,” the brief stated.Like Mr. Kestenbaum, a Hudson Institute senior fellow, Liel Leibovitz, pointed out that Hillel filed its brief on the saddest day of the Jewish year.“Congrats, @HillelIntl! You helped make Tisha B’Av even sadder and more tragic by siding with @Harvard and opposing the president’s efforts to make universities accountable for their unchecked and rampant Jew-hatred,” Mr. Leibovitz wrote on X. “Hard to think of a more dumb and depraved act.”The withdrawn brief echoed arguments in a September order from a United States district judge, Allison D. Burroughs, which held that the Trump administration violated Harvard’s free speech rights when federal agencies began terminating grants and freezing funding in April last year. “Defendants and the President are right to combat antisemitism and to use all lawful means to do so,” Judge Burroughs wrote. “Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did. The record here, however, does not reflect that fighting antisemitism was Defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard and, even if it were, combatting antisemitism cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment.”The Trump administration appealed in December, arguing in part that Judge Burroughs’ court was the incorrect venue for Harvard’s case and that she was wrong in finding that the Trump administration infringed on freedom of speech with a list of demands it sent to the university president, Alan M. Garber, before it revoked the funding.Representatives for Harvard University did not respond to inquiries from the Sun.

Hillel Scrambles Amid Backlash After Jewish Campus Org Defends Harvard in Antisemitism Case

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