Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Harvard University has fired a librarian whom someone filmed ripping posters of the Bibas children, two babies murdered in captivity by Hamas, off a kiosk in Harvard Yard, The Harvard Crimson reported on Monday.

Jonathan S. Tuttle, a steward of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study’s 150,000 volumes of books, films, and other media, clawed and destroyed the posters during an anti-Zionist demonstration staged by the campus group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP). The posters, aimed at raising awareness of the plight of the Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, were placed there, and other other locations, by Harvard’s local Chabad chapter.

Following the incident, which became a viral sensation on social media and reinforced a widely held perception that the university has not done enough to combat antisemitism on campus, Harvard diversity and inclusion officer Sherri A. Charleston denounced Tuttle’s behavior as “hateful” and a violation of “the university and community values that unite us.”

On Monday, Harvard University spokesperson Jason A. Newton told The Crimson that Tuttle is “no longer affiliated with the university.” The Crimson added that Harvard has scrubbed any trace of the librarian from its websites. Prior to that announcement, Newton reported that Tuttle’s conduct was being investigated “as a bias related incident.”

This was one of many antisemitic incidents to take place at Harvard University since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, and its affiliates have maintained that the administration’s response to the issue has been unsatisfactory.

“Harvard continues its failure to effectively address antisemitism,” former Harvard University president Larry Summers said on March 3, writing on the X/Twitter social media platform. “Despite [current Harvard president Alan Garber’s] clear and strong personal moral commitment, he has lacked the will and/or leverage to effect the necessary large-scale change.”

Summers isn’t Harvard’s only critic in the Jewish community. Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a “Campus Report Card” in which Harvard’s antisemitism policies were given a “C” grade. ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement accompanying the report that every school assessed by the organization should have received an “A.”

Harvard University was on Monday named as one of 60 schools the US Department of Education will investigate over allegations that it violated federal civil rights law by refusing to correct a hostile environment caused by antisemitic discrimination.

“The department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite US campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement announcing the news. “US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by US taxpayers. That support is a privilege, and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.