Muslim students at Harvard University face Islamophobia and insecurity

Muslim students at Harvard University faced bigotry and abuse as the Massachusetts campus was roiled by protests last year, according to two reports released on Tuesday that found many felt shunned by peers and professors for expressing political beliefs.

Harvard and other universities face extraordinary pressure from President Donald Trump's administration over allegations of antisemitism and leftist bias. The reports, jointly amounting to more than 500 pages, were the result of two task forces Harvard set up a year before Trump took office, one on combating antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, the other on combating anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias.

Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a letter accompanying the reports that they included "searing personal accounts" drawn from about 50 listening sessions with about 500 students and employees. He wrote that Harvard would do more to teach its students how to have "productive and civil dialogue" with people from different backgrounds and would promote "viewpoint diversity."

The task forces recommended that Harvard review its admissions, appointments, curriculum, and orientation and training programs, as well as change its disciplinary processes. They also encouraged more classroom teaching about "Israel/Palestine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Garber wrote that Harvard will begin a research project on antisemitism and support "a comprehensive historical analysis" of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians at the university. He said the school would also make its disciplinary processes more effective and efficient.

The Trump administration has demanded that Harvard work to reduce the influence of faculty, staff and students deemed activists, as part of a crackdown on what it says is antisemitism that erupted on college campuses in 2023 after the Palestinian militant group Hamas' attack on Israel and subsequent war in Hamas-controlled Gaza. It also urged Harvard to audit departments to ensure "viewpoint diversity" and take other steps.

The administration froze $2.2 billion in grants, most of it for medical and scientific research, following Harvard's denunciation of its demands as an unconstitutional attempt to control the school, and Harvard sued. The task force on combating anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli bias said in its report that bias had been “fomented, practiced, and tolerated” at Harvard and within academia more widely.

In a statement announcing the findings, Harvard President Alan Garber said that “Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and pro-Palestinian community members reported feeling judged, misrepresented, and silenced” and that Jewish, Israeli and Zionist community members reported hiding “overt markers of their identities to avoid confrontation”.

“Especially disturbing is the reported willingness of some students to treat each other with disdain rather than sympathy, eager to criticise and ostracize, particularly when afforded the anonymity and distance that social media provides,” Garber said.

“Some students reported being pushed by their peers to the periphery of campus life because of who they are or what they believe, eroding our shared sense of community in the process.”

The task force on combating anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias said it found a “deep-seated sense of fear” among students and a state of “uncertainty, abandonment, threat, and isolation” on campus.

“Muslim women who wear hijab and pro-Palestinian students wearing keffiyehs spoke about facing verbal harassment, being called ‘terrorists,’ and even being spat upon,” the task force said.

“The issue of doxxing was particularly highlighted as a significant concern that affects not only physical safety and mental well-being, but also future career prospects,” it added, referring to the practice of disclosing a person’s personal or identifying information online.

Nearly half of Muslim students and staff surveyed reported feeling physically unsafe on campus, while 92 percent said they believed they would face professional or academic penalties for expressing political views. “As Muslim students we have been living in constant fear,” the taskforce quoted an unnamed student as saying.

“There have been trucks driving around campus for months, displaying the faces of Muslim students… my peers who have lost their jobs simply for being in the leadership of Muslim faith organisations have been left out to dry once they had their offers revoked… If there were antisemitic trucks driving around campus and planes flying over with antisemitic slogans, I cannot help but believe Harvard would have done more to stop it.”