Larry Hogan pulls out of Harvard programs over ‘anti-Semitic vitriol’ on campus

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has dropped out of two fellowship programs at Harvard amid the fallout after the university’s reaction to Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel earlier this month.

Hogan, who left office earlier this year at the end of his term, had agreed several months ago to take part in leadership fellowships at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

In a letter to the university, which Hogan posted publicly online, the moderate Republican said he would no longer participate after more than 30 student groups signed onto a joint statement blaming Israel for the attack.

“I cannot condone the dangerous anti-Semitism that has taken root on your campus,” he wrote. “This horrific terrorist attack was the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust and it should be universally condemned as exactly what it is: Pure evil.”

The statement, which most of its signers have since disavowed, said they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

“Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum,” they wrote the day of the terror attack, which left more than 1,400 dead. “For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to ‘open the gates of hell,’ and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced.”

The statement drew national backlash, with companies vowing that they would not hire any of the students, who were not individually named, upon graduation.

Harvard didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment. In an Oct. 9 statement, school President Claudine Gay condemned Hamas’s violence.

“Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership,” she wrote. “We will all be well served in such a difficult moment by rhetoric that aims to illuminate and not inflame.”

Hogan said the students’ statement amounted to “hate speech,” and he didn’t feel like the university had sufficiently denounced “anti-Semitic vitriol” from the students.

“This is not a decision I have taken lightly, but it is my hope that it may help further spur you to take meaningful action to address anti-Semitism and restore the values Harvard should represent to the world,” he wrote in his letter.

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