Harvard Rolls Out Inferior, Segregated Learning for Jews
Plus, latest on Brown, Barnard; 300 percent effective marginal tax rate
The former executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, whose fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School in Spring 2023 became an international news story after the then-dean correctly assessed that Roth wouldn’t have much to add, is back at Harvard for an encore.
It’s a measure of something that his return tour as a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy hasn’t generated as much press attention as the initial engagement. Perhaps the regular presence at Harvard of an anti-Israel mob spreading Jew-hating lies makes Roth seem comparatively mild by comparison, though Roth’s own anti-Israel lies (“apartheid,” “genocide”) provide fuel for the “there is only one solution, intifadah revolution” crowd. Perhaps the powers that are at Harvard concluded that trying to keep Roth out or away only attracted more attention to him by turning him into an academic-freedom martyr, notwithstanding that Harvard routinely turns down plenty of other fellowship applicants.
What’s comical, and telling, is that in Roth’s return engagement at Harvard he’ll be leading an “Israel-Palestine” study group with three announced meetings. The first two of the meetings—in person on October 3 and by Zoom on October 24—are on Rosh Hashana and Shemini Atzeret, effectively barring observant Jews from participating. After a complaint, Roth responded not by moving the first meeting to a time when everyone can participate together, but instead by adding “a second Session One” held by Zoom—effectively creating a segregated class that, because it’s remote rather than in-person, is an inferior experience.
When Jews complain about this sort of thing at Harvard we sometimes hear the response “well, it’s not a university holiday,” accompanied by the implication that it’s unreasonable to demand that the university grind to a halt or suspend normal operations in response to a holiday observed by a small minority. I hear that.
I also see that Harvard is facing multiple lawsuits and congressional investigations over antisemitism, that the Wexner Foundation pulled out of its 34-year partnership with Harvard on the grounds that “our core values and those of Harvard no longer align,” that Harvard President Claudine Gay was forced out in part because of her botched response to antisemitism on campus. Among the preliminary recommendations of the Harvard University Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism was that “The University should create a simple web address (e.g., www.harvard.edu/jewishcalendar) that will provide information on Jewish holidays for members of the community. Appendix A contains information on Jewish observance as well as dates of Jewish holidays. The list should be updated annually to allow academic units to simply, easily and reliably determine the days on which they should try to avoid scheduling events.”
That recommendation was made June 6. It is now October 6, fully four months later. The web address www.harvard.edu/jewishcalendar goes to a “404 not found” error. That Harvard can’t or won’t stand up a simple Jewish calendar web page four months after the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism recommended it tells you much of what you need to know about the administrative competence (or lack of it) and sense of urgency (or lack of it) with which the Harvard leadership is approaching these issues.
I’m not even saying it’s specific to Jewish matters; it tells you, also, about the glacial pace of action at Harvard on just about any issue. And I’m not questioning President Garber’s intentions, either; I think he sincerely wants to improve Harvard, not only for Jews or Israelis or on the dimension of nondiscrimination but also in terms of other important dimensions such as excellence and intellectual vitality. Yet as Robert Kraft said in parting ways with Bill Belichick, “This is a results business.” On the Harvard Jewish calendar, the result four months after the preliminary recommendation is a “404 not found” error.
The titles of sessions two and three of Roth’s Israel-Palestine study group are “Is Israel Committing the Crime of Genocide in Gaza?” and “Is Israel Committing the Crime of Apartheid in the West Bank and East Jerusalem?” The reading listed doesn’t include anything from the Israeli government or its defenders, just from Roth, his organization, and his former allies. With the Harvard fellowship, Roth is moonlighting, because he’s concurrently a visiting professor at Princeton.
I’ve been willing to give Harvard credit when it shows signs of possible progress in asserting some control and policing the boundaries when it comes to academic quality, nondiscrimination, and the line between scholarship and activism, education and indoctrination. The return of Ken Roth to the Harvard Kennedy School (where I worked until July 2023) is not such a sign.
Brown clarifies on weapons investments: The Brown Daily Herald’s recent coverage of an effort to get Brown University to divest from companies backing Israel’s war in Gaza included this passage:
“We are not going to actively or directly invest in any weapons manufacturers, arms manufacturers or defense contractors,” Chief Investment Officer Jane Dietze said at a town hall last year.
I asked whether and how the university had decided not to invest in defense contractors, noting that the university has Reserve Officers’ Training Corp programs. “What are the students supposed to shoot with or fly in? What message is a prospective Brown ROTC student to take from Dietze's statement?”
Brown’s vice president for news and strategic communications, Brian Clark, responded directly and promptly with an answer to my question: “There has been no formal divestment action at Brown related to weapons manufacturers or defense contractors. Our CIO was not articulating a policy or divestment action, but rather an approach to investment strategy -- for the 4% of our endowment that we invest directly, investments in these areas are simply not a strategy we've elected to pursue. As illustrated by our SEC 13F filings, we maintain only a small number of direct holdings, so there is a very long list of industries in which we're not electing to pursue direct investments.”
Barnard diversity orientation: In the Columbia Sundial, a new student-run publication, Shoshana Aufzien writes about her dissatisfaction with how antisemitism was discussed at Barnard’s orientation for new students: “I've cried twice in the past year. The first time was last November, when I listened to a teenage boy eulogize his sister who was murdered by a 16-year-old terrorist outside Jerusalem's Old City. The second time was one month ago, during Barnard orientation, as I witnessed a DEI coordinator justify hate speech, racialize Jews, and downplay antisemitism on Columbia’s campus.”
Benefits cliff: A new discussion paper by Elias Ilin and Alvaro Sanchez from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta highlights the problem of the “benefits cliff,” the income-based phaseouts of tax credits and benefits eligibility that wind up creating high marginal tax rates for earners in the range between low and middle income.
Research suggests that high effective marginal tax rates “effectively lock low income workers into poverty,” the paper says.
For one hypothetical family, “due to benefits cliffs and the co-occurring phaseouts of multiple transfer programs, the hypothetical family is as financially well-off at $11,000 as it is at $65,000 of earned income. In other words, due to the structure of the combined federal and local DC social safety net, an increase in employment income by $54,000 does not result in any gains in net financial resources for this family.”
“Overall, we estimate that at an income of $11,000, our hypothetical family is eligible for $68,686 in government support. At an income of $65,000, the family can expect to receive roughly a third of that assistance ($22,709). The family’s overall tax liability also increases, growing from $842 to $12,835. This loss of public assistance combined with an increase in taxes fully offsets a $54,000 income gain,” the study says.
The effective marginal tax rates graphic is something else:
Brad Wilcox, a professor at the University of Virginia, flagged the study as a “truly astonishing indictment of our welfare policies.”
“A single mother in DC can make no gains, financially, as her earnings rise from $11,000 to $65,000 because benefits like food stamps & Medicaid phase in/out as her income rises. Terrible for work/marriage,” he wrote.
The paper says a “hold harmless fund” that compensates people for the benefits phaseouts might help reduce some of the disincentives.
I’ve been writing about this issue for years (see “Perverse Incentives” and “Marginal Tax Rates and Benefit Phaseouts”). It may seem arcane but it’s significant, especially for those caught in the dependency trap. Wilcox is right to call it terrible.
McCaul presses Biden on 2,000-pound bombs: The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, is pressing President Biden to stop withholding or slow-walking some arms shipments to Israel.
From the letter, dated October 4, 2024:
As Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I sign off on all major weapons sales and my committee has jurisdiction over global arms sales policy. I, along with Members of Congress from both parties, have previously raised serious concerns about your Administration’s unacceptable, politically motivated delays of weapons shipments to Israel.
While the Administration has recently moved some previously delayed major weapons packages to Israel, you are now delaying other vitally important arms exports, including 2,000-pound bombs held since the spring. These weapons are part of a package that I personally signed off on, and were paid for with congressionally appropriated funds. It was reported the Administration had halted this shipment due to concerns over an Israeli operation in Rafah; while the Rafah operation has concluded, the shipment is still blocked.
Israel continues to face unprecedented threats from Iran and its terrorist proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has fired at Israel almost daily since October 8, causing civilian casualties and displacing over 60,000 Israeli civilians. Last week, Israel used a number of 2,000-pound bomb variants to successfully eliminate arch-terrorist and mass murderer Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top Hezbollah leaders. You rightly called this strike a “measure of justice.” We all wish Israel did not need these larger bombs, but they are operationally necessary as Israel’s enemies, including Hamas and Hezbollah, are intentionally using deeply buried subterranean bunkers and tunnels. I call on you to allow these weapons, which are ready to ship, to be sent to Israel immediately.
I am also aware of more than ten other weapons cases purchased via Direct Commercial Sale (DCS) that have experienced unusual, unexplained delays. Under National Security Presidential Directive-56, State was directed to complete the review and adjudication of license applications within 60 days of receipt. However, these cases have been awaiting final approval for an average of over four months. It is clearly not the case that “everything else is moving in due course,” as unnamed State Department officials have claimed.
The Administration has consistently said its support for Israel is “ironclad.” We must fulfill this commitment both to protect Israel’s security and to demonstrate our credibility as a reliable defense partner. Returning to normal processing and delivery timelines with respect to arms sales is urgently needed to compete against Russia and China. I urge you to act today to ensure all weapons shipments to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs, are expedited to support our ally.
An August 2, 2024 letter from Senator Cotton, Senator Tim Scott, and 46 of their Senate colleagues complained that Biden was “deliberately delaying the delivery of weapons, ammunition, and equipment to Israel,” including “120 mm tank ammunition, 120 mm mortar ammunition, light tactical vehicles, air-to-air missiles, F-15s, F-35 engines, joint direct attack munition kits, 2,000 pound bombs, rifles, and guided missile systems….” And a September 25, 2024 letter from Senator Cotton and Senator McConnell condemned Biden’s “continued delay” in shipping MK-84 bombs, Apache attack helicopters, and Caterpillar D9 tractors to Israel.
Speaking to the National Association of Black Journalists on September 17, 2024, Vice President Harris backed Biden’s partial arms embargo. She said, “one of the things that we have done that I am co- — entirely supportive of is the pause that we’ve put on the 2,000-pound bombs. And so, there is some leverage that we have had and used.”
The executive editor of the New York Times, Joseph Kahn, has claimed credit for Biden’s decision to halt the shipments of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, describing it as a “real result” of the New York Times coverage of the issue.
Recent work: Speaking of New York Times coverage of Israel, the Algemeiner has published two new columns I wrote on the topic: “New York Times Exemplifies the ‘Moral Confusion’ Which Netanyahu Warns Of” and “New York Times Whitewash of Nasrallah Draws Bipartisan Backlash.”
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Brown does not have an ROTC program. Its students can do ROTC at other institutions.
Kenneth Roth, who was born Jewish but married in an Anglican church, shouldn't need a Harvard website to know the date of Rosh HaShana. Roth chose not to spend the day in synagogue but instead to be at work, demonizing Israel when there are no identified Jews to oppose him.