The Harvard Crimson’s Radical Trojan Horse

The Harvard Republican Club’s (HRC) recent rejection of Republican values should have been a unifying moment, when all students, conservative and liberal, can come together and defend religious liberty at Harvard. However, Harvard’s largest newspaper, the Crimson, has chosen in the past week to use this moment to amplify the message of an organization with extremist views, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In doing so, the Crimson has tried to smuggle extremist viewpoints into Harvard’s discourse under the guise of “civil rights.” This is unacceptable. CAIR is not a “civil rights group,” as the Crimson has described it. It is in fact an extremist organization that has, as we will show in this article, defended domestic abuse and antisemitism. Instead of being amplified, this extremism must be rejected.

In two articles, coming out within 24 hours of one another, the Crimson amplified CAIR’s criticism of Harvard. Following the HRC’s post about Harvard Eid celebrations, CAIR complained in a letter and a Tweet about “false allegations of antisemitism,” while demanding Harvard take action against the HRC. It is a slightly odd decision to report on this – the Crimson does not usually report on outside groups condemning the school, let alone clubs at the school – but this is not in itself especially suspect.1