College presidents seek to clarify position on calls for Jewish genocide after blowback

The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) and Harvard University presidents posted remarks online Wednesday seeking to clarify their position after refusing to state unequivocally that calling for the genocide of Jews violates their school harassment rules.

The presidents were joined by the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Tuesday when they were chastised in Congress for their responses to the rise of antisemitism on their respective campuses since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Lawmakers asked the presidents if calling for the genocide of Jews violated the schools’ bullying and harassment policies. The school presidents generally said the speech could be investigated if warranted, but it would be a context-based decision whether it violated school policies.

Harvard President Claudine Gay, who took some of the biggest hits in the hearing, said it has been a difficult task balancing free speech and student safety during these times. In a statement posted online, she said, “There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students.”

“Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account,” Gay said.

Penn President Liz Magill also released a video following the hearing to clarify her Tuesday statements.

“In that moment, I was focused on our University’s long-standing policies, aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable,” Magill said in the video. “I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate.”

Magill continued, saying a call for the genocide of Jews, in her view, “would be harassment or intimidation.”

She said Penn and other universities should review and clarify their policies since hate is proliferating across campus “in a way not seen in years.” Magill said she would immediately “convene a process” with the provost to take a “serious and careful” look at the university’s policies.

MIT president Sally Kornbluth has not released a statement following up on her statement from the hearing. In the hearing, she said she has not been aware of any calls for genocide of Jews on the MIT campus.

The statements come after the Biden administration, Republican presidential candidates and several lawmakers have commented on their answers from the hearing.