Since the conflict between Hamas and Israel broke out on October 7, 2022, Senator John Fetterman broke with many of his progressive colleagues in Congress by speaking out in defense of the Jewish state on multiple occasions, even loudly pointing out antisemitism in the university campuses. Indeed, to combat this last point, he proposed a Republican colleague as president of Harvard University.
The senator from Pennsylvania, elected in 2022 after defeating Mehmet Oz, recently rejected the "progressive" label and said he wanted to be on the "right" side in defense of Israel.
On this occasion, he officially endorsed Mitt Romney (R-UT) to be the next president of Harvard. This position is undergoing an interim term after the media-filled resignation of Claudine Gay.
As an alumnus of Harvard, and after this mad season of antisemitism at Columbia, I co-sign.
This former Governor of Massachusetts doesn't need a paycheck, but Harvard and its academic peers needs to recalibrate from far-left orthodoxy. pic.twitter.com/eaT0F5VaiR
— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) April 22, 2024
Analyzing the latest events at Columbia University, where more than one hundred people were arrested in an antisemitic demonstration, Fetterman assured that his Republican colleague could help correct this trend on university campuses.
"As an alumnus of Harvard, and after this mad season of antisemitism at Columbia, I co-sign. This former Governor of Massachusetts doesn’t need a paycheck, but Harvard and its academic peers needs to recalibrate from far-left orthodoxy," he wrote on his X account, reacting to an op-ed by alumnus Daniel Rosen in The Wall Street Journal.
"As the grandson of Holocaust survivors and president of the American Jewish Congress, I find it devastating that Harvard has not vigorously addressed rampant antisemitism on campus. Anyone who has studied there can attest that Harvard is not an antisemitic institution. I never for a moment felt oppressed or marginalized as a student on the Harvard campus. But, to my dismay, recent years have seen an unconscionable spike in — and even worse, an administrative tolerance of — hate speech directed at Jews, including targeting Jewish students. The university’s response has thus far been ramshackle and unproductive, to put it mildly," Rosen wrote.
As for Romney, he described him as a person with a "unique bridge-building character is precisely what Harvard needs in an age of toxic polarization." He highlighted him as an "eloquent and experienced administrator who has consistently demonstrated his political independence in defense of what is right, rather than what is expedient."
"Although many at Harvard might not share Romney’s politics — a 2022 Harvard Crimson poll shows that more than 80 percent of Harvard’s faculty identify as liberal — choosing him would be an ideal way to nurture a culture and atmosphere of open inquiry and respectful dialogue. What matters more than political leanings is that Romney has the moral courage and independence to identify the root sources of antisemitism at the university, address the decline in Jewish student applications and enrollment, and teach a new generation of young adults the importance of mutual tolerance and civilized coexistence," Rosen added.
Romney, also the former Republican nominee for president in 2012, announced that he would not try to seek a second term in the Senate and would leave Washington, D.C., at the beginning of 2025. f interested in the proposal, he would follow the recent cases of former Senator Ben Sasse and former Congressman Bill Johnson, who currently serve as presidents of the University of Florida and Youngstown State University, respectively.
