Dershowitz: Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs breed antisemitism

After the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests have erupted across college campuses.

By Charlotte Hazard

Published: December 21, 2023 6:09pm

Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz slammed diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at American universities, arguing that they breed antisemitism.

"The one wish would be to abolish the DEI bureaucracies... to get rid of this diversity, equity, inclusion bureaucracy, which incorporates this intersectionality and the BDS [boycott, divest, and sanction] movement," Dershowitz said on the Thursday edition of the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "It all grows out of this."

After the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests have erupted across college campuses. Some protest groups have even been suspended by universities.

Dershowitz further criticized Harvard President Claudine Gay for her remarks during a House hearing on antisemitism during which, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., questioned Gay, asking, "[a]t Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?"

Gay responded, saying, "depending on the context," that it could violate policies and "antisemitic speech, when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation — that is actionable conduct and we do take action."

"You can't say anything negative about protected, oppressed minorities, but you can say anything you damn please about Jews, because the First Amendment applies to Jews," Dershowitz said. "You know, President Gay discovered the First Amendment on October 7. She had never known anything about the First Amendment. She had never enforced it. She was an enemy of the First Amendment."

"Then suddenly when it came to, 'do you think Harvard's rules would prohibit calling for genocide against the Jews?' 'Oh, the First Amendment! Somebody told me about the First Amendment. I'd never read it before. But now the First Amendment applies to hate speech against Jews. It doesn't apply to anything else. But it applies to hate speech against the Jews,'" he said. "That's DEI."