Harvard Law Review Gives $65,000 Fellowship to Anti-Israel Student Charged With Assault

Ibrahim Bharmal will work at Council on American-Islamic Relations, write article

Harvard Law student Ibrahim Bharmal, center.

Harvard Law Review, which the federal Secretary of Education announced this week is the subject of a discrimination investigation, is awarding a $65,000 fellowship to the student who faced misdemeanor criminal charges for assaulting a Jewish student during an anti-Israel campus protest.

Law student Ibrahim Bharmal, who pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor assault and battery charge, was ordered by a Suffolk County judge this week to complete an anger-management class and 80 hours of community service as a pre-trial diversion. The charge related to what a prosecutor described as “a hands-on assault and battery…a gang gathered around…actual interpersonal violence” against a Jewish Harvard Business School student during an anti-Israel protest on the Harvard campus on October 18, 2023. Bharmal’s lawyer, Monica Shah, has downplayed the severity of the interaction, telling the judge this week, “It was not hands-on. It involved a scarf, and there’s no physical injuries.”

The event triggered a letter from prominent Harvard Business School alumni including Joanna Jacobson, Mitt Romney and Seth Klarman, that said, “The videos that have been made public, particularly the most recent violent assault of an Israeli student on the Harvard Business School campus, allow us all to see how Jewish and Israeli students are targets of threats and violence from groups of pro-Palestinian students.”

Harvard Law Review’s website describes the fellowship by saying it “supports recent Harvard Law School graduates with a demonstrated interest in serving the public interest through their work and scholarship. It enables fellows to spend a year working in a public interest-related role at a government agency or nonprofit organization. Each fellow will receive a $65,000 stipend. At the end of the fellowship year, each fellow is expected to publish a piece of legal scholarship that draws on the fellow’s work during their fellowship year in the Law Review’s online Forum.”

The “public interest-related role” for Bharmal is to be at the Los Angeles office of the California Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR California’s work includes things like advocating against arms sales to Israel and advocating for the arrest of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It’s not clear how either of those are a good use of Harvard Law Review money, let alone in the “public interest,” and it’s fairly unbelievable for Harvard Law Review, with a board that includes Harvard professors, to be funding such a fellowship at a moment when Harvard is in a high-profile, $3 billion standoff and court battle with the Trump administration over the university’s left-wing bias and pervasive antisemitism.

During Monday’s court hearing before Judge Stephen McClenon of Boston Municipal Court, Brighton Division, the Jewish Business School student, Yoav Segev, said Bharmal had “failed to show an ounce of remorse.” Segev faulted Bharmal for launching a media campaign in an attempt “to mischaracterize me as the aggressor.”

Shah, Bharmal’s lawyer, had earlier described her client as “a Pakistani Muslim student,” and suggested he was being unfairly singled out for punishment because of his background or his political beliefs.

The Harvard Law Review did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment. Shah did not respond to an email seeking comment from her or her client. The Harvard Law School communications office did not respond to an email seeking comment. The Editors learned about the fellowship from a Harvard-related source familiar with the situation.

The latest tax filing for the Law Review, an independently incorporated nonprofit that lists its purpose as “advancement of legal study in support of Harvard Law School,” lists $35.8 million in net assets and a board of directors that includes two Harvard law professors and the then-dean of Harvard Law School, John Manning, who has since been promoted to the role of Harvard provost, the no. 2 academic role in the entire university. It’s unclear whether Manning is still on the board or if he’s been replaced by someone else, such as the interim dean of the law school, John Goldberg.

Harvard is in a high-stakes conflict with the Trump administration. The federal government says it froze $3 billion in research funding for Harvard, and Harvard is suing to get the money released. Trump posted to social media on April 16 that “Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges. Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.”

Also this week, Harvard released the report of its antisemitism task force, which reported, among other things, on an official Black graduation ceremony where a faculty speaker denounced “Zionist overlords,” and on a Harvard medical school event for admitted students that seemed aimed at discouraging Jewish students from attending. Harvard also released separate internal survey data showing Jewish students have an inferior experience on the campus and that it worsened significantly between March 2019 and October 2024.

Harvard has a recent history of giving its own post-graduation fellowships to anti-Israel campus activists or of officially recommending the activists for competitive fellowships such as the Rhodes, Marshall, and Truman.

The discrimination investigation into the Law Review was triggered by a report by Aaron Sibarium in the Washington Free Beacon about the Review taking the race of authors into account when assigning or accepting and rejecting articles.

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