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{shortcode-dd08abb0bb2b02bf4881baaa9fb305566107f8d4}he woman at the front of Science Center Hall B clicked through a slide deck peppered with rainbow diagrams, clip art, and phrases like “understanding the diversity of Jewish identity” and “stopping the cycle of antisemitism.”
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, she told the hundred-plus Harvard students gathered in the lecture hall. Dialogue and curiosity are how you learn, she added, and cultivating a sense of belonging is the best way to combat discrimination.
The scene could have been ripped from any corporate diversity workshop or professional development seminar — except this one, aimed at Harvard upperclassmen preparing to guide incoming freshmen through their first week on campus, arrived as colleges and companies have scrambled to ditch their diversity efforts.
Among Harvard students, who have watched their school take apart its diversity offices one by one, the required hour-long training on Aug. 17 came as a surprise. No bias training on other forms of discrimination was scheduled — a fact not lost on those who attended.
“The elephant in the room is that the two biggest ‘-isms’ that have been discussed at Harvard’s campus are Islamophobia and antisemitism,” one student said during the training, according to an audio recording obtained by The Crimson. “What went into the decision of deciding that one needed a presentation and the other one didn’t?”
The crowd erupted into applause.
The mandated antisemitism training follows months of accusations from the White House that Harvard fostered a hostile environment for Jewish students in the fallout of campus protests. Residential staff, including tutors and proctors, were required to attend a similar session. And Harvard has been vocal about its commitments to Jewish life on campus.
But at the same time, Harvard is cutting back on inclusion programs elsewhere, shuttering the Harvard College’s Women’s Center, Office for BGLTQ Student Life, and Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations in July.
Harvard has said the changes are the result of a years-long plan to restructure its approach to campus life — but there’s no concealing that they arrived amid intense political pressure. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has demanded that universities bolster support for Jewish students but eliminate programs focused on race and gender, which his administration has tried to deem illegal.
New training was not the only change to Harvard’s freshman programming this year. Under pressure from the Trump administration, officials also ordered staff to restructure two pre-orientation programs — canceling affinity events and cutting ties with outside activists.
Now, as the Class of 2029 arrives in Harvard Yard, they are entering a campus riven by political backlash, where officials are struggling to juggle federal demands alongside fury from students who wonder whether the University is walking back its commitment to support their identities.
A Harvard College spokesperson did not comment for this story.
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The Only Antidiscrimination Training
Since the wave of grief and protests set off by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s war in Gaza, Harvard has faced a monthslong reckoning over antisemitism, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the politics of Jewish identity.
The University launched two task forces in January 2024 to investigate bias against Jewish, Israeli, Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian affiliates. The groups’ reports, released in April, took up more than 500 pages.
Meanwhile, Harvard made its opposition to antisemitism a public platform, not just a quiet commitment to internal reform. When Harvard settled two discrimination lawsuits this January, it promised to promote annual trainings on recognizing and combating antisemitism. And as the Trump administration stripped federal funding to punish Harvard for alleged antisemitism, the University tried to prove its bona fides by describing its new trainings in missives to the government.
At some point along the way, confronted with anxiety among its own students and a cratering public image, Harvard turned to a time-tested answer: bringing in outside consultants who promised expertise and sensitivity.
Harvard’s relationship with Project Shema, the group that delivered the antisemitism trainings earlier in August, goes back at least as far as fall 2024. Project Shema has been involved in planning workshops at the School of Public Health, events at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and a seven-session series held by what was then the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. Harvard Business School announced a partnership with Project Shema in January.
The nonprofit — which bills itself as a program built by “progressive Jews” — sits at a strange junction between the remedies that Trump’s White House has called for and the DEI initiatives his administration hates.
Project Shema emphasizes how antisemitism intersects with other forms of discrimination, like anti-Black and anti-Asian racism. And it does not use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which has drawn ire from pro-Palestine student activists for effectively classifying certain criticisms of Israel as antisemitic. Instead, Project Shema says it does not teach about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
During the Aug. 17 session for undergraduates, Kara A. Wilson — Project Shema’s chief strategy officer, who delivered the training — focused less on the ongoing war in Gaza and more on the history and mechanics of antisemitism, walking participants through century-old tropes portraying Jewish people as all-powerful and untrustworthy.
Wilson, who is herself Black and Jewish, also discussed her own personal experiences of racism and antisemitism.
She described antisemitism as “cyclical,” involving periods of prosperity for Jewish people followed by waves of repression. That was distinct from other forms of oppression, she argued — like anti-Black racism, which she said involved permanent domination of one group by another.
But when prompted for questions, the audience zeroed in not on Wilson’s presentation, but on the choice to hold the training in the first place.
“Despite knowing the current political climate where many Muslim students are feeling unsafe, why was this training prioritized over learning about any other kinds of phobia or discrimination?” one student asked, according to the recording obtained by The Crimson.
Wilson, pointing to the intersectionality of antisemitism, answered that the lessons learned from examining it could be applied to other forms of discrimination. Associate Dean for Student Engagement Jason Meier intervened, stating that the College recognizes that there are “many, many -isms.”
“In our work over the last few years with Project Shema, it’s been very clear to us that this is an incredible organization that can have this conversation, and that’s why this was selected,” he added.
But the student pushed back, saying they found it “disheartening” that pre-orientation leaders were being taught to “address one specific thing over another.”
“You have my word that I’m taking this need back to administration, so that we can continue this conversation,” Meier responded.
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Several students left the session feeling as if Harvard’s decision to hold it was made in no small part to protect itself from White House claims that its leaders are not doing enough to protect against campus antisemitism.
Alfred F.B. Williamson ’27, an attendee and First-Year International Program leader, said in an interview that he agreed it was important to teach students how to combat antisemitism. But he saw the training as evidence of Harvard’s capitulation to a narrative set by the Trump administration that “antisemitism is somehow by far the most important form of discrimination on campus.”
“My big issue is that there was clearly an intentional choice to pick antisemitism training over any other kind of antidiscrimination training,” he said.
In a separate session held for residential life staff on Aug. 21, the crowd was largely silent throughout the presentation, according to one proctor and one tutor in attendance.
Freshman dorm proctor Zachary Lech, who is Jewish, said in an interview that he didn’t understand how hearing stories about the history of Jewish people would make him more equipped to enforce College policies.
And he questioned whether the session had any practical value, saying he assumed that proctors and tutors were already prepared to call out antisemitism if they witnessed it.
“It almost felt as if it wanted to be propaganda, except even propaganda wouldn’t make sense in this context,” he said.
Pre-Orientation, Reoriented
After the training sessions for pre-orientation leaders concluded and freshmen began to arrive, the changes only compounded — especially for the First-Year Retreat and Experience, geared toward first-generation and low-income students, and the First-Year Urban Program, which centers on local public service projects.
In past years, FUP has unabashedly embraced the spirit of the student activists who signed up for it — and prized its work with on-the-ground service organizations. Its participants listened to local organizers deliver panels on prison abolition and labor union reform. And they spent their days volunteering everywhere from a low-priced grocery store in Central Square to a homeless shelter in Roxbury.
This year, that all changed.
FUP’s Director of Student Engagement and Leadership Varsha Ghosh and Assistant Dean of Civic Engagement and Service Travis Lovett were asked in May to entirely redesign the program, according to a June 18 email that Ghosh sent to FUP leaders.
Ghosh wrote in the email, which was obtained by The Crimson, that they were required to restructure the program “due to a number of factors, including recommendations made from the two Task Forces on addressing bias on campus and the ongoing conflict between the federal government and the university.”
The program would no longer host panel discussions with local advocates on specific topics like prison abolition or housing reform, Ghosh wrote. Instead, FUP participants spent six days listening to Harvard faculty discuss their research on topics like housing policy and crafting personal narratives in public service.
The program’s overhaul included rewriting FUP’s mission statement. The previous version included pledges to aid grassroots organizations, catalyze student involvement in activism, and create a shared commitment to public service.
The new mission emphasizes relationship building, social spaces, and goal setting.
“The focus will still be on service and how we work with the community, but also on how Harvard students can craft their civic journeys and what resources are available to them on campus,” Ghosh wrote.
A. Ruby Arun ’29, who participated in FUP this year, said that she didn’t think the program’s focus on individual public service detracted from its emphasis on social justice and activism.
“It’s focused on both — your personal story, your upbringing — but they kind of focus on how we can come together as a group and contribute to the community overall,” she said.
Arun said she still had the chance to listen to presentations by public-service-oriented scholars, and that the program gave her insight into what activism at Harvard looked like.
“Everyone in my program, and everyone I’ve met in other pre-orientation programs are very action-oriented,” she said. “It’s exciting to be part of that movement.”
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Meanwhile, FYRE eliminated evening events that it used to hold for LGBTQ, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Black, Latino, and rural students.
“Due to university guidance, we are no longer able to host identity-specific Affinity Spaces as we have in past years,” one of the program’s student co-chairs announced in a June 27 message to team leaders that was later obtained by The Crimson.
This year, the program would pivot to “culture-oriented events that are empowering and open to all,” according to the message.
FYRE participant Zhiyan “Jessie” Zheng ’29 said that even with the elimination of affinity spaces, she was still able to connect with students who came from a similar background.
“I’m glad that FYRE still exists because, if not for FYRE, I don’t think I would have connected as well with other students who are FGLI,” she said “I grew up in a very non-FGLI, very predominantly white high school, where I felt very isolated.”
‘Confusing and Disappointing’
When the College closed its offices for minority students, LGBTQ students, and women, its leaders affirmed their commitment to supporting the entire student body, but revealed little else about why the changes were made or what they would mean in practice moving forward.
For many students, who were not directly informed of the changes when College Dean David J. Deming announced them in a message to staff on July 23, that approach has led to frustration at best — and allegations of capitulation to the Trump administration at worst.
But for some incoming freshmen like Dylan J. Szatko ’29, the decision was a reason to question whether coming to Harvard was the right decision.
“One of the main factors that I took into consideration when choosing Harvard was the way that it responded to Trump’s demands,” Szatko said. “So it’s confusing and disappointing for a student like me to see that the University is just backtracking.”
Szatko, who identifies as LGBTQ, said he wished Harvard did more to protect the College’s former diversity offices and was more transparent on its rationale for closing them.
“The fact that they just haven’t really clarified why they’re making these changes, to me, and I think to many of the first-year students, signals that they’re making them because of pressure from the administration,” he said.
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Agreements by three of Harvard’s Ivy League peers over the summer showed the power Trump exerted over even the nation’s oldest universities — and left students waiting to see whether Harvard would be next. The University of Pennsylvania erased records held by a transgender athlete. Brown University agreed to stop providing gender-affirming care to minors and share detailed admissions data on race and test scores with the federal government. And Columbia University paid $200 million and agreed to continue its reviews of programs that had drawn the White House’s ire.
Many students in the Class of 2029 committed to Harvard in the spring, when the University’s bold refusal of demands from Trump put it at the forefront of institutional resistance.
“If they even make a deal — the way that Brown did, Columbia did — that’s going to be a huge letdown and an incredible disappointment,” Szatko said.
Lily Madison ’29 said she stood by her decision to commit to Harvard, though she was skeptical of the recent changes.
“I don’t regret my choice. I still think that Harvard is a phenomenal academic institution, but I do think that if there are unforeseen challenges, it definitely could hurt anyone on campus,” she said.
Yassin T. Mohamedy ’29 said that while Harvard continuing to give in to demands from the Trump administration would be “disappointing,” he understood why the University might need to strike a deal.
“I obviously get it, because at the end of the day, it’s a school, and its job is to educate,” he said.
Still, Mohamedy hopes that with time and the passing of the Trump administration, Harvard will return to upholding the policies it once upheld.
“I do think that under a different president, God willing, things will change,” he said.
—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.
—Staff writer Nina A. Ejindu can be reached at nina.ejindu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @nina_ejindu.
—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.
