Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker and other school officials were subpoenaed Friday by a House committee for “continued failure” to respond to an anti-Semitism investigation.
The Ivy League school had to submit a series of “priority documents” to the House Education and Labor Committee by 5 p.m. Wednesday, but the deadline was missed, prompting Mr. Pritzker, interim President Alan Garber and Harvard Three subpoenas were issued against the university. Mr. NP Narvekar, CEO of the management company.
“Harvard was given several accommodations, including regular opportunities to submit work, multiple deadline extensions, and priority documents being identified by the committee. Yet, they have repeatedly failed to respond to the committee’s requests within a reasonable time.” Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) issued a subpoena to the three officials. In the letter accompanying the letter, he stated:
Foxx accused the school of obstructing the investigation while condoning anti-Semitism on campus.
A House committee last month launched an investigation into Harvard University’s handling of anti-Semitism on campus following the resignation of former president Claudine Gay.
Gay resigned amid anger over plagiarism allegations and his testimony at a panel discussion. In it, Gay did not explicitly say that those who called for the massacre of Jews at universities would be punished.
Fox said Harvard had provided more than 2,500 pages of documents to the committee, about 40% of which had already been made available to the public, but some requests were not complete.
In a statement, the committee chairman said he was “extremely disappointed” by Harvard’s apparent obstruction and called what had been submitted so far “grossly inadequate.”
“Harvard University has failed to achieve substantive results on two of its four priority requests in its recent response, and its work on the remaining two priorities includes notable omissions and questionable edits. It contains flaws,” Fox said.
The subpoena requests various reports, communications and documents, including those related to the school’s response to 34 student groups blaming Israel for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on the Jewish state. ing.
Fox said he sent a final warning to Harvard last week, including a threat of subpoenas. She now hopes the mission will serve as a “wake-up call.”
“Harvard’s continued failure to meet the committee’s demands is unacceptable,” she said. “I will not tolerate delayed investigations or defiance while Harvard’s Jewish students continue to endure the firestorm of anti-Semitism that has engulfed our campus.
Mr. Pritzker, Mr. Gerber and Mr. Narvekar have until March 4 to submit the requested documents.
