Garber announces new steps to combat bias against Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians

President Alan M. Garber announced new actions and initiatives the University is undertaking in conjunction with the release Tuesday of the final report from the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias.

In his community message, Garber thanked the members of the task force “for pursuing their work with a spirit of openness, empathy, and compassion during a period of unrest within our community,” noting that their report is “the product of strenuous, prolonged efforts by some of the most generous and dedicated citizens of our University.”

The actions Garber announced focus on three main areas: nurturing a widespread sense of belonging and promoting respectful dialogue; revising and implementing policies, procedures, and training; and strengthening academic and residential life. Building upon work the University has done over the last 15 months, the new actions include launching a major initiative to promote viewpoint diversity; undertaking a comprehensive historical overview of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians at the University; and further review of disciplinary policies and procedures to assess their effectiveness in ensuring that every member of the community feels supported.

Harvard’s Schools are actively reviewing task force recommendations concerning admissions, appointments, curriculum, and orientation and training programs, including those organized by recognized student groups. Deans will work to strengthen existing academic review processes for courses and curricula to ensure they uphold the highest standards of academic excellence and intellectual rigor. Action plans designed for the College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and each professional school will be shared with the president’s office by the end of the spring term.

“The scope of recommendations made by both task forces underscores the breadth of the challenges we face. They must be addressed with determination at every level of the University by effectively tackling issues that arise where our students congregate or live; ensuring that expectations for both students and teachers in the classroom are clearly communicated and met; nurturing vibrant debate and open speech in ways that encourage everyone to express their ideas freely; preserving the right to protest and dissent while avoiding disruption, harassment, and threats; and, when our policies are violated, ensuring that our disciplinary processes are fair, consistent, and effective. If we intend to make significant and durable change across Harvard, it is critical that we act decisively in each of these areas,” Garber wrote in his message.

Last spring and summer, the task force gathered feedback from students, faculty, staff, and alumni through a series of listening sessions and a joint task force survey. In addition, the task force explored how salient events at the University over the past year and key world events over the last several decades impacted the campus climate.

The final report includes findings and a set of recommendations designed to address feelings of abandonment and silencing described by many Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and pro-Palestinian members of the Harvard community, especially following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and their aftermath. Through a review of the concerns raised by community members, the report outlines how the University can improve safety and anti-discrimination policies, uphold free expression and open inquiry inside and outside of the classroom, rebuild institutional trust through an emphasis on equal access and transparency, expand faculty and academic offerings that provide a more comprehensive and representative view of the histories, beliefs, and cultures of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians, and related topics.

Research and findings

Task force members were appointed in late February 2024 and began their work in early April 2024, hosting a series of listening sessions with students, staff, and faculty. Nearly 50 sessions were held with an estimated 500 participants. Following the sessions, the Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias joined with the Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias in issuing a University-wide survey that garnered 2,295 responses. The task force was not charged with investigating reports, but participants were advised of University policies under which they could file formal complaints. Stories were described in the report as they were heard.

From those who attended the gatherings, five themes emerged: descriptions of experiences of discrimination and hate against Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and pro-Palestinian members of the Harvard community; dissatisfaction with institutional response to incidents of bias and hate; growing divisions, self-censorship, and alienation within the community; concerns about educational experience and a desire for a more inclusive curriculum reflecting global complexities; and calls for divestment as a means for Harvard to address ethical concerns regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In addition to describing these themes, the report also notes that the history of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians at Harvard reflects a complex and evolving narrative. It starts with a limited presence on campus in the 17th and 18th centuries confined mostly to theological studies. It was followed in the 20th and 21st centuries by a period of increasing Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian diversity among students and activism fueled by global events such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Throughout this latter period, and due to events like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians reported facing marginalization, discrimination, misrepresentation, and silencing. According to the report, these issues continue today and now affect an even wider set of community members.

The survey also highlighted significant disparities in feelings of safety, belonging, and freedom of expression across religious and racial lines. The data included responses from individuals who self-identified as Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and atheist/agnostic/spiritual. Though the number of individuals responding to the survey was not as high as similar University-wide surveys, the data allow for a meaningful examination of the differences in responses by subgroup. Respondents who described themselves as Muslim and Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) reported some of the worst outcomes on various measures of safety and belonging and freedom of expression: 47 percent of Muslims and 35 percent of MENA respondents felt physically unsafe on campus, and 92 percent of Muslims and 83 percent of MENA respondents felt there were academic/professional penalties for expressing political views. In examining contributing factors, respondents indicated that interactions within the Harvard community with faculty and peers were largely positive, whereas interactions with outside influences were generally perceived negatively.

“The listening sessions, combined with the University-wide survey, brought to light so much of the pain, struggle, and fear that those in the community here at Harvard were experiencing,” said Asim Ijaz Khwaja, task force co-chair and Sumitomo-Foundation of Advanced Studies in International Development Professor at Harvard Kennedy School. “It is critical that we document the experiences and biases faced by Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, and pro-Palestinian members of our community through regular and systematic data gathering and analysis. This will enable us to better understand and address their concerns.”

Final recommendations

Following the review of qualitative findings last spring, the task force provided preliminary recommendations to President Garber in June 2024, which identified urgent issues the task force believed should be addressed prior to the start of the next academic year. Those recommendations included actions related to safety and security, recognition and representation, institutional response, freedom of expression, transparency and trust, relationships among affinity groups, and intellectual excellence. The University pursued a series of changes including new campus and protest rules, centralized fact-finding in discipline cases across Schools, new training opportunities for faculty, staff, and students on identifying and preventing anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian biases, and new initiatives at Harvard’s Schools for constructive dialogue and disagreement across differences.

In the final report, the task force expanded upon these preliminary recommendations and proposed additional ones.

“These recommendations align with Harvard’s academic mission by prioritizing the safety and security of our students, faculty, and staff, and aiming to ensure their full participation in the pursuit of knowledge while guaranteeing that all voices are heard and respected,” said Wafaie Fawzi, task force co-chair, Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences, and professor of Nutrition, Epidemiology, and Global Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The University can support this mission by ensuring the institutional supports are in place — policies, procedures, and protocols — but also by providing opportunities for our community within and across affinity groups to come together and engage with each other.”

A summary of the final recommendations includes:

Safety and security concerns: The task force recommends continuing to address issues in this area expressed by Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and Pro-Palestinian students, staff, and faculty. This includes both those involving physical and mental health. The recomendations include investing in culturally competent mental health support, offering comprehensive resources and training to combat doxxing, and formally defining instances of Islamophobia, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias within University policies.

Recognition and representation: The report recommends establishing a standing advisory committee of faculty and specialists well-versed in areas pertinent to Middle Eastern history to guide policy, programming, and University responses. It further calls for providing regular and ongoing in-person training for stakeholders and actively supporting programming on key community issues to enhance civil discourse and intellectual vitality within the University. The task force also recommends undertaking a comprehensive historical overview of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians at Harvard to address bias and promote inclusivity on campus.

Institutional response: The task force calls for adopting clearly communicated, user-friendly, and transparent processes for bias incident complaints and anti-discrimination and anti-bullying procedures. The report also suggests establishing support roles to help manage and guide complainants through these protocols.

Freedom of expression: The task force recommends not only adopting policies to protect open academic inquiry, constructive dialogue, and active demonstrations of freedom of expression, but also proactively encouraging and supporting these efforts and providing safe spaces to exercise them. According to the report, clear and transparent policies should exist to manage protest and counterprotest activities, and it should be clearly communicated that the University celebrates community members exercising free speech, provided they respect time, place, and manner restrictions.

Transparency and trust: The task force recommends developing a shared policy framework adaptable by individual Schools, ensuring consistent understanding and flexible application across the University while recognizing the need for School-specific variations. The report suggests a unified communications strategy for these and related policies should be developed. In addition, the task force states that greater transparency and disclosure is needed on issues raised by some community members, such as divestment and greater engagement in the Middle East, including supporting Palestinian and other universities in the region and facilitating exchanges.

Relationships among affinity groups: To strengthen relationships between and within the community at Harvard, the task force recommends creating dedicated permanent spaces and programming that can address the diverse needs of the Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and pro-Palestinian community. To facilitate community relationships, both task forces call for a central hub for pluralism efforts. In addition, the report proposes a University-wide Office of Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life to bolster multifaith work. As envisioned by the task force, these efforts would connect pluralism and multifaith practices across disciplines and enhance programs like interfaith collaborations and cultural events.

Intellectual excellence: As core to the mission of Harvard University, the task force emphasizes the need to enhance the intellectual experience on campus. The report suggests this could include expanding academic offerings by recruiting faculty and increasing courses on Palestinian studies and Arabic language, designing experiential learning programs to address issues like antisemitism and anti-Palestinian biases, and engaging in more University-wide dialogues on crisis issues, alongside existing campus efforts to model respectful dialogue. The task force also calls for leveraging regular surveys, like the Pulse survey, as well as building the capacity to collate and analyze administrative data to monitor community well-being and address key issues on an ongoing basis.

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The full report of the Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias can be found here, as well President Garber’s message about the new University action plan, and more information on the action steps Harvard has taken to date to respond to the concerns, information, and recommendations shared by the task force.