During an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Harvard Professor and President Emeritus and former Harvard President Larry Summers stated that the “collective response of America’s academic leadership” to the Hamas attacks on Israel has been poor and noted that there have been a “number of issues on which leadership at Harvard and other universities have spoken out,” and so “to fail to speak out with equal vigor when it is terror towards Israel was, I thought, a real moral failing.”
Summers said, “I have been so disappointed, I have to say, in the collective response of America’s academic leadership to what has happened. If universities wanted to take the position that they didn’t respond to the issues of the day, that they focused on pure scholarship, I could relate to that position. I think there are arguments for that position. But given the number of issues on which leadership at Harvard and other universities have spoken out, to fail to speak out with equal vigor when it is terror towards Israel was, I thought, a real moral failing. And I’m glad to see that Harvard has adjusted its position and glad to see that, to varying extents, other universities are responding.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett