An Austrian business school has severed ties with Harvard University, adding to the international backlash over the Ivy League college’s handling of anti-Semitic rhetoric on campus over the Israel-Hamas war.
Lauder Business School, located in Vienna, Austria, said in a statement earlier this month that the decision to end its partnership with Harvard was meant to show support for Harvard’s Jewish students.
According to Lauder, the institution became an affiliate of Harvard professor Michael Porter’s Microeconomics of Competitiveness Network in 2014.
“However, given the recent incidents, we are announcing our withdrawal from the Harvard network and are expressing our unwavering support for the Jewish student community at Harvard,” the school stated.
“Our university is proud to create partnerships, but these must consistently align with our moral standards and criteria,” Lauder said, noting that it has been engaged in “long-standing collaborations with Israeli universities.”
The move was initially announced on Dec. 14 in the aftermath of widely criticized testimony in a congressional hearing. The presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were accused of not adequately addressing anti-Semitism surging on their campuses.
In one particularly tense exchange during the hours-long grilling, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) confronted the three executives over on-campus, pro-Palestinian demonstrators explicitly chanting for genocide against Jews.
When asked repeatedly by the congresswoman whether students who called for “intifada” or chanted “from the river to the sea” should be disciplined for violating the schools’ anti-harassment policies, the college leaders declined to give a direct “yes” or “no” answer, but insisted that it depends on “context.”
Just days after the hearing, UPenn President Liz Magill resigned amid intense criticism, although she got to remain as interim president and retain her status as a tenured law school faculty member.
Meanwhile, Harvard’s board has continued to back President Claudine Gay, despite calls from Jewish students and alumni for her resignation over not only her remarks at the congressional hearing but also recently surfaced allegations of plagiarism.
“As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University,” the board said on Dec. 26. “Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing.”
Billionaire to UPenn: I’m Out
An English-language school, Lauder operates as a “university of applied sciences” within the Austrian education system. It was founded in 2003 with financial backing from Ronald Lauder, heir of cosmetics giant Estée Lauder and president of the World Jewish Congress, an international network of Jewish communities and organizations.An alumnus and long-time donor to UPenn, Mr. Lauder in October announced that he had decided to close his checkbook, citing his frustration over his alma mater’s support of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival.
That event featured speakers who had promoted anti-Semitic rhetoric. It took place just weeks before Hamas terrorists launched a killing and kidnapping spree in Israel on Oct. 7.
“It was the biggest anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli pep rally ever held at Penn,” the Jewish billionaire said during a speech at a forum held by the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
“When I pointed out to Penn’s president that this conference would tarnish Penn’s reputation, she refused to cancel it, citing freedom of speech.”
“Something has gone very wrong in our education system,” said Mr. Lauder.
“Not long ago, the hatred of Israel in academia was confined to a few far-left socialist professors ... But this upside-down logic now is spread everywhere, and almost every college president and administrator is afraid to stand up and condemn it.”
