Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a top Republican, is withdrawing his invitation to Harvard University over what he says is the school’s “anti-Semitic vitriol” in the wake of the Hamas terror attack on Israel.
“I cannot condone the dangerous anti-Semitism that has taken root on your campus,” Hogan wrote in a letter to Harvard President Claudine Gay that he also posted to X, the former Twitter platform.
“While these students have a right to free speech,” he added, “they do not have a right to have hate speech go unchallenged by your institution.”
He said he was previously “honored” by the fellowships to both Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, but he will no longer accept them “especially” after “more than 30 Harvard student organizations attempting to justify and celebrate Hamas’ terrorism against innocent Israeli and American civilians” posted an open letter right after the Oct. 7 ambush.
That open letter continues to roil the Cambridge campus into a third week.
In his social media post, the potential 2024 third-party presidential contender began by saying that he told Gay Monday that he “must withdraw” an offer to “participate in fellowships this Fall” due to what he said was “dangerous anti-Semitism” on campus.
He attached his letter to Gay he added the Hamas attack was “horrific.” He added he had just completed a “similar” fellowship at the University of Chicago’s Institute of politics “just last week,” but he won’t be planing to come to Harvard next.
“The horrific terrorist attack was the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust and it should be universally condemned as exactly what it is: pure evil,” he wrote Gay.
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He said, “Harvard’s failure to immediately and forcefully denounce the anti-Semitic vitriol from these students is in my opinion a moral stain on the University.”
He ends the letter by stating: “The lessons of history are clear: we must all do our part to take a clear stand in the face of genocidal acts against the Jewish people are any group. There is no ‘both sides’ when it comes to the murder, rape of innocent women and children.”
He adds “there is no room for justification or equivocation.”
His post had been viewed 677,000-pls times before 4 p.m. Monday.
Harvard has not responded and the Kennedy School’s social media feed on X was about a “special symposium marking the inauguration” of Gay as president of the college.
Gay, in two statements in the wake of the open letter by pro-Palestinian groups on campus, said she condemned the “terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas” while also saying “students have the right to speak for themselves.”
Her response has not stopped others from pulling support from the university — including a “stunned and sickened” Wexner Foundation, a leading voice for the Jewish faith, which is pulling its support of $2 million-plus for Harvard.
This is a developing story …
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