The Republican-led House Education and the Workforce Committee subpoenaed Harvard University on Friday for failing to provide documents relevant to the committee’s antisemitism probe of higher-education institutions in the U.S.
Representative Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), the committee’s chairwoman, served the subpoenas to Harvard Corporation senior fellow Penny Pritzker, interim president Alan Garber, and Harvard Management Company CEO N. P. Narvekar, according to the committee’s press release.
“Harvard has repeatedly failed to satisfy the Committee’s requests within a reasonable timeframe, despite being afforded several accommodations, including being given the opportunity to submit productions on a rolling basis, being offered multiple deadline extensions, and having priority documents identified by the Committee,” Foxx wrote in letters accompanying the subpoenas.
The action came more than a week after the congresswoman vowed to subpoena Harvard officials if they didn’t comply with the antisemitism investigation. Foxx gave the university until 5 p.m. on Wednesday to hand over the requested documents — a deadline that Harvard did not meet.
“Given Harvard’s failure to satisfy the document requests delineated in the February 7 letter, and to avoid any further delay in its investigation, the Committee must now compel production of all responsive documents,” she added.
Garber previously said Harvard would “comply fully with the process” of the investigation, the student-run Harvard Crimson reported on February 1.
While Harvard has produced 2,516 pages of documents in apparent compliance with the investigation, the committee views the produced documents as insufficient because more than 40 percent, or 1,032 pages, are publicly available. Additionally, many of the submitted documents were redacted without explanation.
The subpoenas require Harvard to send eleven key areas of documentation to the committee, which is investigating what actions the school has taken against antisemitic incidents on campus following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
“Harvard’s continued failure to satisfy the Committee’s requests is unacceptable,” Foxx said in a statement. “I will not tolerate delay and defiance of our investigation while Harvard’s Jewish students continue to endure the firestorm of antisemitism that has engulfed its campus. If Harvard is truly committed to combating antisemitism, it has had every opportunity to demonstrate its commitment with actions, not words.
“It is my hope that these subpoenas serve as a wakeup call to Harvard that Congress will not tolerate antisemitic hate in its classrooms or on campus,” she continued.
This marks the first time that the 157-year-old committee has subpoenaed a university, a committee spokesperson said.
Harvard did not respond to National Review’s request for comment.
The House Education Committee first requested documents from Harvard in January, a month after launching its antisemitism investigation into the university and two other schools, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania. The committee opened the probe after a contentious Capitol Hill hearing, in which the three college presidents failed to say whether advocating for the genocide of Jews violated campus policy.
Following their House testimony, Claudine Gay and Liz Magill apologized for their controversial remarks and resigned from their positions at Harvard and UPenn, respectively (Gay’s departure came amid plagiarism allegations as well). MIT president Sally Kornbluth still remains in her post.
Since Gay’s resignation, Harvard has established its Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism to address the rise of antisemitic incidents on campus.
Earlier this week, the committee expanded the higher-education probe to include Columbia University and the Columbia-affiliated Barnard College.