Antisemitism at Haverford College

May 31, 2024

President Wendy Raymond
Haverford College

President Raymond,

When I attended Haverford College over 30 years ago, I viewed it as a utopian community created by Quaker principles valued by the administration, faculty, and students. To me, these Quaker values include being open-minded and analytical while treating others with respect and collaborating to resolve conflicts. Perhaps these values were best exemplified by the unique, yearly plenary sessions that debated the honor code with a goal of consensus. Until recently, I routinely contributed to Haverford’s annual fundraising and was proud to inform people that I graduated from Haverford College.
In 2020, all of the aforementioned Quaker cornerstones disappeared from the Haverford College campus. I was disappointed when many students falsely blamed racism by law enforcement for the tragic shooting death of a mentally ill black man in Philadelphia (even though the man attacked the officers with a knife after being told 11 times to drop it). While these misguided students had the right to protest and boycott classes (although Haverford had nothing to do with this shooting), your administration’s response angered me. Instead of standing up to the mob, you attempted to appease it and further divide the community by offering (according to The BiCollege News) reparations and a required white privilege course. Most egregious was your refusal to discipline these students when they intimidated and bullied other students who disagreed with them or just wanted to attend class. At this time, I realized the school had lost its moral compass and was no longer the civilized community that I cherished, so I discontinued my annual giving.
During the 2023-2024 school year, Haverford College has sunk to new depths. Your administration has created a hostile environment for Jews by promoting rather than discouraging antisemitism. This includes your agreement with, instead of firing, Professor Tarik Aougab who publicly supported the October 7th terrorist attacks. It is abhorrent that both of you described the raping of women and mutilation of babies as “people breaking free from chains” although Israel left Gaza almost 20 years ago. Subsequently, your administration has also allowed encampments with genocidal chants against Jews and prevented a Jewish student from conducting an antisemitism awareness event because it might be “antagonistic to pro-Palestinian students”.
As President of Haverford College in 2021, you accepted an amendment to the Haverford Social Honor Code that restricted freedom of speech for “microaggressions” or expressing political opinions that are “not respectful of community standards”. Clearly, you now support a double-standard for Jews as intimidation, harassment, and calls for our genocide are justified under the guise of freedom of speech.
During your 5 years at Haverford, the school has lost its morality and lofty Quaker values of rationality, tolerance, and respect. Instead, you have replaced these values with a DEI framework in which people are treated as members of warring groups, instead of as individuals, and judged by race and gender identity instead of merit. It has been said that DEI programs always result in ““divisiveness, exclusion, and inequality” and Haverford’s is no exception. Your DEI influence has been toxic as Haverford has descended into an abyss of amoral, narrow-minded wokeness with mob rule.
I have just taken the money that I would have contributed to Haverford’s annual fundraising over the past 4 years and donated it to The Deborah Project for the Jews at Haverford vs Haverford College lawsuit that was recently filed. I hope this lawsuit results in monetary loss for the college and overwhelming negative publicity before the eventual loss of government funding due to violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I hope Haverford will soon fire you and its other woke, antisemitic administrators and faculty so that it can return to its place as an elite college guided by Quaker values.

Sincerely,
Marc Grossman
Haverford Class of 1991
Rockville, Maryland
CC: The BiCollege News, The Clerk, Haverford Board of Managers