Harvard South Asian Students Face Heat For Pro-Hamas Letter
NEW YORK, NY (IANS) – Indian American students at Harvard have been trapped in JNU-style flippant radicalism in supporting Hamas along with their South Asian peers in the tide of anti-Israel activism sweeping the US academia.
Four South Asian groups with students of Indian origin in leadership positions signed a statement with 30 other Harvard student organizations after the Hamas attack that said they held the “Israeli regime entirely responsible” and refused to condemn the terrorist Hamas attack that killed at least 1,400 civilians in Israel.
Soon, there was a predictable backlash against the statement that sounded like a justification for the Hamas attack and support for it.
Things got hot when hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman said that students associated with the statement should not be given jobs and about a dozen CEOs joined him demanding to know who the students were so they wouldn’t be hired by their companies.
Soon, a conservative group hired a truck with huge display monitors that went around the Harvard neighborhood with names and images of the leaders of the group who had hidden behind their organization’s names, tarnishing even members who did not support the statement.
Others published their names and contact details on social media leading to denunciations and threats against them.
Crumbling under the threat from the CEOs, one of the signatories, a South Asian cultural organization, Undergraduate Harvard Gunghroo, withdrew its signature.
Apologizing for signing the statement, Gunghroo said that it “strictly denounces and condemns the massacre propagated by the terrorist organization Hamas”.
Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Student Association also dropped its support for the statement.
South Asian Law Students Association, South Asians for Forward-Thinking Advocacy and Research, which have Indian origin students in leadership positions, as well as Sikhs and Companions of Harvard Undergraduates, had signed the statement. It is not known if they have dissociated themselves from the statement. Amnesty International at Harvard, Harvard College Act on a Dream and, the Harvard Islamic Society had also pulled out.
Maneck Bhujwala
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The students who failed to condemn HAMAS for starting the current conflict and committing the atrocities of killing men, women, and children brutally and raping women in front of their children, etc. may have been influenced by groups that form coalitions with groups who are simpathetic to terrorist groups in order to advance their own political agendas.
October 30, 2023VIJAY
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Those students should be deported with no questions asked. To support a terrorist group like Hamas in unacceptable.
October 30, 2023PEMBA
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SOUTH ASIAN STUDENTS DESERVES DEPORTATION. THE THINK THEY ARE IN “JNU”.
October 30, 2023Pradeep Srivastava
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According to, under the title, “ Rights of International Students and Scholars in the United States”,
All individuals in the U.S. have the following rights:
• Free speech, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and freedom of
religion
• Freedom from illegal search and seizure (a law enforcement official must
have a subpoena or warrant), unless a crime has been committed where the
search would take place
• Permission to remain silent (and not say anything that could be used against
you)
• Guarantee of “due process” and “equal protection under the law”, which
means that you have the right to an attorney, and a right to have a hearing
before a judge in most cases
• Right to contact your country’s Consulate
However, free speech is not totally free. For example, it’s illegal to yell “Fire” in a crowded theater. Likewise, it may be legal to openly support a terrorist group like Hamas, but the corporations also have a right not to hire individuals who openly support Hamas. To be on the safe side, there is a need to be extremely prudent and circumspect about what public statements one can or should make unless one decides to be a full time activist for a particular cause.
November 1, 2023