Peter Beinart Asks Harvard To ‘Lose With Dignity’ in Standoff With Trump at IOP Forum

Peter Beinart, the editor-at-large of the liberal publication Jewish Currents, said Harvard could only maintain its “self-respect” by resisting Donald Trump’s demands against the University at an Institute of Politics Forum on Tuesday.

“At least lose with dignity,” Beinart said. “At least be able to do it in a situation where, when you talk about what happened one day to your grandchildren, you can say, ‘I maintained my self-respect. I stood up for principles I believe in.’”

Just days after Harvard received an ultimatum from the Trump administration that conditioned its federal funding on compliance with eliminating all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, banning masks, and instituting broad governance reform, Beinart issued a wide-ranging critique of the University — and was met with frequent applause from attendees.

Beinart took aim at Harvard’s decision to suspend the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative at Harvard Divinity School — a program focused on studying the Israel-Palestine conflict as its case study. Beinart said the decision represented an abandonment of academic principles by prioritizing balancing “both sides” over “an understanding of truth.”

“You don’t say this vis a vis India’s treatment of Muslims, or Russia’s relationship with Ukraine, or Burma’s relationship with Rohingya, and say, ‘Well, let’s make sure we’re representing both sides,’” he said. “You say, ‘What is the scholarly methodology that tries to bring us to an understanding of truth in this situation?’”

“And then you have people who are just doing that now being shut down because of this political pressure that Harvard University seems unwilling to stand up against,” Beinart added.

A University spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.

Beinart, a well-known commentator who was once a hawkish supporter of Israel but has transformed into one of the most prominent Jewish critics of Israeli policy toward Palestinians, said the Trump administration was weaponizing claims of antisemitism to “domesticate and cripple” universities in a moderated conversation with director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Mathias Risse.

Those attacks are “hard to rally resistance against,” Beinart said, because prominent Democrats have accepted Trump’s premise that universities are not adequately responding to antisemitism.

Beinart said the argument was strengthened by the widespread adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism — which Harvard incorporated into its Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying Policies and Procedures in late January.

The IHRA definition, most controversially, argues in a set of accompanying examples that it is antisemitic to compare Israeli policies to Nazi policies or describe Israel’s existence as a “racist endeavor.”

“The definition is, frankly, from a scholarly perspective, a joke,” he said. “When you adopt that definition of antisemitism, you have abandoned the moral authority to oppose what Donald Trump is doing.”

“Why on earth is that prima facie evidence of antisemitism?” Beinart said. “This definition basically has the effect of equating anti-Zionism and antisemitism, which then basically makes all Palestinians into bigots, right? Because, like — news flash — Palestinians are not big fans of Zionism.”

Though Risse clarified that the University would only enforce the IHRA definition if the suspected antisemitism constituted “bullying” rather than simply speech “in isolation,” Beinart said the line was blurry.

“I worry about how even this discussion of bullying will play itself out,” Beinart said. “The distinction between what makes someone unsafe and what makes someone uncomfortable has been, when it comes to Jewish students, very, very purposefully eroded.”

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.

—Staff writer Tanya J. Vidhun can be reached at tanya.vidhun@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @tanyavidhun.