Summers: Schools Are Reluctant to Confront Antisemitism Because ‘Highly Progressive’ Groups Are ‘So Large’

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Harvard Professor and President Emeritus and former Harvard President Larry Summers stated that there has been a reluctance to strongly respond to antisemitism because “in a variety of communities that regard themselves as highly progressive, there is an affinity for positions vis-a-vis the Middle East that many of us find deeply problematic. And I think because that community is so large within universities, there has been a reluctance on the part of administrators to take it on.”

Summers said, “Look, there’s been a problem on college campuses generally, and it’s been a problem at Harvard as well, that there’s just been a double standard in the way university leaders have responded to racism, to other forms of prejudice, and the way they’ve responded to what is pretty clearly antisemitism or at least has antisemitism as its effect. And I don’t know why those mistakes have been made, but they have been serious and [it’s] something that Israeli students have been aware of for quite some time.”

Later, host Dana Bash asked, “As somebody who was in academia for a long time, why is it so difficult for university administrators to respond forcefully to antisemitism?”

Summers responded, “I think that the issues around antisemitism are related to issues around political diversity. And in a variety of communities that regard themselves as highly progressive, there is an affinity for positions vis-a-vis the Middle East that many of us find deeply problematic. And I think because that community is so large within universities, there has been a reluctance on the part of administrators to take it on. I saw that myself, when, years ago, as President, I condemned the boycott, divest, sanction Israel movement, and saw how much controversy that statement generated. But I think the issues around antisemitism, and particularly before October 7, the failure to confront it can’t be separated from the broader issues of political diversity, the broader issues of identity politics.”

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