At Harvard, Fatphobia Is a Sin. Antisemitism? Meh.

On Wednesday, a group of Jewish students at Harvard filed a lawsuit against the school. You can read the full text of Alexander Kestenbaum and Students Against Antisemitism, Inc., v. President and Fellows of Harvard here. Essentially, the students are tired of the school turning blind eyes and deaf ears to the attacks on Jews on campus particularly when it has spent so much time, tears, and ink on protecting all of the usual victims. 

The suit cites "severe and pervasive" antisemitism at the school, which has included marches in which the participants have called for the death of Jews and an end to the state of Israel. The protestors have occupied various buildings on campus, harassing and even assaulting Jewish students. 

The plaintiffs allege that the faculty and staff have promoted antisemitic views and that the school itself has turned blind eyes and deaf ears to the concerns of Jewish students. Harvard, the plaintiffs claim, selectively enforces its policies when it comes to protecting Jewish students and hires antisemitic professors. The group asserts:

In supporting Hamas and condemning Israel, Harvard students and faculty harass, discriminate, and assault Jewish students—including on October 18, when a mob of protesters attacked a Jewish student, and the next day, when a mob trapped a group of Jewish students in a study room—but they are never heard to condemn, let alone rally against, Syria and Yemen, which have killed hundreds of thousands of Arab civilians, or Pakistan, which is currently expelling almost two million Afghan Muslims, or China, which has imprisoned its Muslims in reeducation camps, or countries like Somalia and Nigeria, where Christians are regularly murdered.

The group cites rallies across the nation and at Harvard where students who are known to be Jewish or are "visibly Jewish" have been publicly accused of being genocidal, murderers, white supremacists, colonizers, child rapists, killers, and, of course, Zionists. Harvard's excuse for allowing this rot to continue, failing to enforce its own anti-discrimination policies and ignoring pleas of Jewish students for safety? Free speech.

Speaking of anti-discrimination policies, the lawsuit also notes that students are required to undergo training should they be accused of fatphobia, sizeism, transphobia, racism, and other unacceptable behaviors, adding: 

Harvard’s double standard is apparent when one compares Harvard’s failure to discipline anti-Jewish harassment with its warning to freshmen—during the Title IX training— that 'sizeism,' 'fatphobia,' 'cisheterosexism,' 'racism,' 'transphobia,' 'ageism,' and 'ableism are prohibited because they 'contribute to an environment that perpetrates violence.'

Since I have yet to download the Woke-to-English translation app, I had to look up the definition of cisheterosexism. One site explained it as essentially being "straight privilege." The LGBTQ Center at UNC-Chapel Hill explained: 

Cisheterosexism functions simultaneously alongside sexism to construct and reinforce the existence of two distinct gender categories (i.e., man and woman) each with specific parameters for 'appropriate' enactment or performance of being "male" or "female." Sexism, as a system, privileges cisgender men and masculinity. As a result of these systems, there is a similar but distinct process of coming out with respect to gender identity and gender expression.

Only a truly protected class has time to sit around and create ways to mangle the English language. With all of those words, isms, and phobias to trip over, it's a wonder any studying is done at all at Harvard. The student body must spend all of its time lining up to register their grievances before picking up their red and green spray paint. The upshot is that some students seem to be more equal than others. No decent person wants to make life miserable for anyone, but while Harvard goes all-out to protect the usual groups, the Jews have been left to fend for themselves. 

Antisemitism, the plaintiffs note, has been a problem at Harvard for years. The suit cites at least a decade's worth of antisemitic actions, including an incident in 2015 in which a swastika was left on a desk in a Harvard Law classroom. 

I hope the students win and Harvard is held to account. No, scratch that. I hope the students win, the antisemites are expelled, and the staff and faculty have to freshen up their resumes and hit the bricks. 

Harvard has long sought to maintain its elite status by protecting fat and trans people or anyone who was not white, while tacitly and sometimes overtly giving the nod to students and faculty alike to run wild and adopt the philosophy of the Nazi Party. But never mind all that. If blood has to be shed, college careers upended, and people terrorized, so be it. All of this chaos and violence will result in a better society, right, Harvard? It's worse than hypocritical. It's criminal, but this is what equity looks like.