BREAKING: Alan Dershowitz Assails Claudine Gay After Harvard Board Votes To Keep Her As President

Hi, everybody. I'm Diane Brady. I'm here with Alan Dershowitz, noted trial lawyer, professor emeritus at Harvard, of course, the author of Get Trump. Alan, good to see you. I want to start with Harvard because I know you've written about Claudine Gay in the past. The Harvard president, of course, now under fire for her testimony last week. Let's start with how you view her in general because she's been on your radar. Prior to her congressional testimony, she was.

Always the wrong person at the wrong time for the wrong job. When she became president of Harvard, she had been the dean of Harvard College and had been a disaster. She was kind of instrumental in what's, what's called the safe ism policy, that is keep students safe from dangerous ideas, but don't protect them from violence. She has applied a double standard. She's presided over an administration which canceled lectures by people who believe there are two genders, canceled lectures, rescinded invitations and acceptances to students based on what they might have said in high school to a friend. Harvard became the worst school in the United States for free speech. And suddenly, on December 7th, Claudine Gay discovered free speech in order to defend Hamas supporters who want to commit genocide against Israel. Her recent championing of the First Amendment is very questionable. She should have admitted to the congressional committee that under Harvard standards, which are wrong, but under Harvard's long term standards, where microaggressions aren't permitted, of course, calling for the genocide of Jews is against Harvard's rules, but she did. She was not honest with the committee. She said instead, and I'll quote her, we embrace a commitment to free expression. I wish it was true, but it wasn't true. She stands for the opposite of free expression. She stands for cancel culture censorship, the diversity, equity and inclusion monstrosity, bureaucracy which has taken over college campuses. And so the board that appointed her initially repeated their mistake by keeping her on after she's proved her incompetence to lead Harvard.

Let me, I want to get to what she said before Congress, but let's first unpack a little bit what you said with regard to her. The atmosphere that she allegedly created. Was there specific incidents that come to mind that illustrate that for you in.

Terms of one perfect incident? A man named Ron Sullivan was the first African American dean, along with his wife of Winthrop House, one of the great houses of Harvard. And he, under the Constitution, was asked to defend Harvey Weinstein, which he did for one month. She led the campaign to fire him because he made students feel unsafe. She said if you're a dean, you have a pastoral responsibility to keep students safe. And she said he didn't adequately explain why he defended Harvey Weinstein, as if a lawyer has to explain why he exercises a constitutional obligation under the Sixth Amendment. So she was responsible for creating this atmosphere under her presidency. Lectures have been canceled, admissions have been canceled. An atmosphere of intolerances pervade the campus. Not only that, but Harvard itself has a terrible policy. Just about a decade earlier, the great president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, was fired by the Harvard Corporation because he said something that suggested to some that men and women may have equal, unequal capacities in math, physics, and other subjects. That was not protected speech. But calling for the genocide of Jews is protected speech. That's the problem.

Go ahead. I found one of the things about the testimony is, you know, had I been answering that question, I think it's to immediately associate the term intifada with Jewish genocide. Seems it's one interpretation. But when I've spoken to some people in March, as they consider it uprising, rebellion, do you think it's fair to just.

The question was, what would Harvard do if somebody called for the genocide of Jews? She could easily have said, intifada doesn't mean genocide. And then the question would have been, but what if somebody calls for genocide? And she gave the same answer. Here's what her answer should have been. Under the policies that Harvard has had for many, many years, including the firing of Larry Summers, including rescinding of admission statements under those standards, of course, calling for the genocide against the Jews. The violates Harvard's rules. Period. Stop. End of the paragraph, end of the book. There have been no problem. But she couldn't get herself to admit that Harvard's policy on free speech is terrible. Instead, she said under oath, quote, we embrace a commitment to free expression. That isn't true. She never embraced a commitment to free expression until October 7th. She discovered the First Amendment when 33 Harvard student groups said that the rapes of these women and the murders of these women were all the fault of Israel. All the fault of Israel. Remember, this all happened before Israel sent a single soldier into Gaza. This happened as a result of the rapes and the murders. And she did a terrible job in responding to that. Her testimony was only the straw that broke the camel's back, but not the back of the corporation that originally appointed her. Didn't want to admit their mistakes and compounded the mistake by keeping her on.

So is this sufficient grounds, you think, for her to be ousted? Just to make it clear, sort of what the end game is here for this. Results of the testimony. Obviously, we've already seen the UPenn president has resigned. Forced to resign might be the right way to put it. What should happen to Claudine Gay at this point?

Well, I think she should resign. By her own standards, she forced the resignation or the firing of Ron Sullivan because he didn't make students feel safe, which was a fake. He did make students feel safe, but in this case, there's no question. She made students, Jewish students, feel unsafe. So by her own standards, she ought to resign. But also the board ought to resign. Remember that when the president of Penn resigned, so did the chairman of the board. Mr. Bob.

Yeah.

I think the chairman of the board here, Ms. Pritzker, should resign as well, because she was instrumental in picking Claudine Gay. And Claudine Gay was not picked because she's a great scholar. Indeed, her scholarship has now been questioned and challenged. She was picked because of D E I. She was picked as part of the WOKE Progressive DEI program. And many colleges have done the same thing. And I think there are a lot of college presidents today who do not have the experience, the background, the courage to stand up to intimidation on college campus. So I think anti Semitism is going to spread as long as there's a DEI bureaucracy, because that's what breeds anti Semitism. So she's only a symptom of the problem. The problem goes deeper than her.

What do you make of the support that she's had? There's been certificates, certainly a wave of support in favor of her staying on within Harvard.

Members knew she would win, and I think a lot of them were just pandering to her. She's their boss, number one. Number two, they were right to say that the corporation shouldn't make its decision based on pressure from donors. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't have made the decision to fire her. The letter never called for an investigation of what she's done and said it didn't ask to have input from other people. Why didn't they speak to Steven Pinker? Why didn't they speak to me? Why didn't they speak to others who are very closely affiliated with Harvard who don't contribute money? They use the fact that Bill Ackerman contributes money to ignore his very substantial merit arguments against her. And so I think the letter was a disservice to academia. It gave no reasons. It simply said, don't comply or capitulate the pressure. That's right. Don't capitulate the pressure but decide on the merits. Now. Let's have a discussion of the merits. They didn't have a discussion of the merits. Instead, they had midnight meetings and they, in their elitist fashion, and the Harvard Corporation is one of the most elitist institutions in the world, they reiterated their decision. And I can tell you a lot of my friends on the faculty are opposed to her and opposed to the Harvard Corporation, but they're afraid to say anything because they know that the corporation and the president can control their lives. I have no such fear, and I don't blame others for capitulating to the fear. But Harvard today is a place of fear, intimidation, and a place where students who are Jewish, particularly those who wear kippah or Star of David or wear, as I do, a flag of Israel and a flag of the United States, would feel very uncomfortable walking through the campus today. If I was walking through the campus today wearing what I wear on my lapel every single day, I think I would be. I wouldn't be intimidated, but I would be harassed.

So what should free speech look like in the context of. Take the Israel Hamas war, that the people who are concerned about what's going on in Gaza. How do those, how do those protests look? In a way, because it has been deemed to be a lot of it anti Semitic. I don't know if it's intentionally anti Semitic. We've certainly seen a rise in anti Semitism, but that's. It's wrong to tar all people who are, you know, protesting the war that way. What would you like to see? I mean, give me some sense of what normalcy would look like in this situation.

Well, I. Protests against Israel's bombing, against Israel's targeted assassinations. That's all fair game. But Palestine will be free. Free of what? Free of Jews. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be cleaned. Cleaned. Cleaned of what? Dirty Jews. There is line, and people understand that line. When it comes to blacks, you can say, for example, I'm not in favor of race based affirmative action, but if you say that blacks are intellectually inferior, that crosses a line and know that line. And there are lines also. Criticism of Israel is fine. Criticism of Netanyahu is fine. Calling for the end of the only nation state of the Jewish people in the world, calling for the extermination of Jews between the river and the sea, that crosses Harvard's own line. So Harvard failed to apply its own standards before we.

I want to move on to the political realm because I do consider you an expert on Trump. But let me just. I Want to just pause for a second on the current landscape because we've talked about this before. Give me your sense, Alan, as to how. Are there any glimmers that we're moving in the right direction here? We are talking about anti Semitism. It is an issue being brought up in Congress which to some extent would indicate progress. But are you overall pessimistic? Are you optimistic? I mean, I'm. It's just so polarized right now. I'm curious as to what's on the horizon.

Well, in Israel they say a pessimist to somebody who says things are so bad they can't possibly get worse. And an optimist says, yes, they can. Combination of both. On the day that this butchery took place, October 7th, I dropped everything I was doing and I decided to write a book called the War against the Jews, how to End Hamas's Barbarism. I finished it in 32 days, may break a record and it's been published today. You can get it on Amazon. And I give you my whole analysis of the history of Gaza, the history of the Israel Palestine conflict. What happened on the 7th, more importantly, what happened on the 8th when organizations condemned Israel, The National Lawyers Guild said it was an entirely proper military activity to rape women and to murder them. 33 Harvard groups blamed everything on Israel. I go into all of that in great detail in War against the Jews and I come up with solutions. And obviously the solution is a two state solution. But to have a two state solution, you must get rid of Hamas as the governing authority in Gaza. Their charter explicitly, explicitly rejects a two state solution, explicitly rejects Israel existing anywhere they regard as occupied the area where they invaded and raped women. That was part of Israel from 1948 on. It's never been disputed territory. It was accepted by Egypt, was accepted by Jordan, it's accepted by Saudi Arabia, but it's not accepted by Hamas. They think that Tel Aviv is part of Palestine, that that every single city in Israel is occupied territory. You're never going to get a solution that way. You need a two state solution. With Hamas out of the picture, the Palestinian Authority democratically elected, running both the west bank and Gaza. Israel is offered the two state solution in 1948-1967-1994-2000, 2001, 2007, 2005. And it's still on the table. And I would hope that the parties, after this is all over and after Hamas is destroyed, could sit down under the leadership of President Biden and others, create the background for a two state solution.

You know, Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that at the very least, maybe it's the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. Do you see that happening? From the progress we've seen so far?

No. I think it's a process that will, that will continue. I'm hoping that the process will eventually lead to a two state solution, which is not a perfect solution, but it's the least worst solution to the problem. The vast majority of Israelis want a two state solution. A lot of Palestinians do not. The people under the auspices of Hamas, they don't want a two state solution. But I'm hoping the possibility of a two state solution is still, is still viable. It could have happened if Yasser Arafat had said yes to camp David In 2000, 2001, we'd have a two state solution. Today I have sat down with Abbas, the Prime Minister of Israel. We've discussed the two state solution. Yeah, I've sat the former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority. If the will were there, it could be accomplished. It's not going to be easy. It gets harder every time there's an attack like this. But Israeli public opinion has still mostly focused on the possibility of a two state solution.

Let me pivot back to the US and look at what's happening with the Supreme Court right now. We have special counsel Jack Smith that has basically gone to the Supreme Court to basically get a ruling on, on whether Donald Trump should have immunity for the events that took place, you know, post election. Give me your sense of what's your read on that?

It's a bizarre application. Remember that Jack Smith won in the court below saying there's no immunity, and then he appealed his win. I've been practicing law 60 years. I've never seen anybody appeal a win before. And so it's a bizarre application to the Supreme Court and no one can predict how the court will come down. This isn't even a liberal conservative issue. This is a question of whether a court, the Supreme Court should intervene on an issue of great national importance. But so early in the process, I think there's a good chance that the Supreme Court will def the issue.

What about, let me ask again about Hunter Biden. I feel like every time we talk about Donald Trump, we should mention that we have. They're also moving to dismiss the gun charges against him, of course, in part because of this prior agreement. We've talked about this before, but I do value your input in terms of what do you think the end game is here for him?

I think there'll either be a plea bargain or there'll be a trial. If there's a trial, probably he'll be convicted of the tax evasion, although normally a case would not be brought against somebody who paid fully the taxes. So I think both in the Trump case and in the Biden case, if their names weren't Trump and their names weren't Biden, I don't think either would be charged with the crimes they are charged with. We're seeing the weaponization of the criminal justice system by both parties in a very partisan fashion.

Anything else on your radar you want to put on ours right now?

I think we live in troubled and dangerous times. I never thought I would see what we saw on on October 7th. I certainly never thought we would see what we saw on October 8th. Rejoicing. My biggest complaint is against women's groups. Women's groups who have done so much to bring rape to the attention of the world. The MeToo movement have remained bizarrely silent when it comes to the rapes of Jewish women. Some of them, in fact, have justified it. Shame on them. Shame.

Well, Sheryl Sandberg gave a presentation to the UN that did get attention to the rape of women in Israel.

That should get attention from women's groups and from all groups. And it should get attention from gay groups and from transgender groups. Where are they? Do they hate themselves even more? Do they hate Jews even more than they hate themselves? Why are they supporting an organization that beheads women, that allows honor killing, that degrades women, that murders gay people? Shame on all of them.

I think that's a good place to end and I think that call to action. I'm sure we'll get some responses, Alan. I look forward to continuing the conversation. And thanks for your time being on with you.

Thank you. You always ask the best questions. Thank you.

Thanks. Bye. Bye.