Rep. Virginia Foxx, the Republican chairwoman of the House Education Committee, said Tuesday that Harvard University has failed to comply with her unprecedented subpoena for documents on campus antisemitism.
Foxx said in a statement that her committee is now “weighing an appropriate response to Harvard’s malfeasance.”
“Harvard has absolutely failed to comply in good faith with the Committee’s subpoena for information about antisemitism on its campus,” Foxx said.
Harvard turned over another trove of documents about campus antisemitism to Congress on Monday evening. The Ivy League school had faced a 5 pm ET deadline to respond to the Education Committee’s subpoena – the first to a university since the committee was founded in March 1867.
Foxx argued that heavy redactions by Harvard made several documents “useless,” while many others were duplicates of documents previously submitted.
“I don’t know if its arrogance, ineptness, or indifference that’s guiding Harvard. Regardless, its actions to date are shameful,” Foxx said.
Harvard officials were not immediately available to comment.
Harvard had faced a Monday deadline to respond to the subpoena, which was issued on February 16 to three different Harvard officials: Alan Garber, Harvard’s interim president; Penny Pritzker, the billionaire leader of the Harvard Corporation, the school’s governing board; and N.P. Narvekar, the CEO of the Harvard Management Company.
The Education Committee did not detail specifically which steps lawmakers are now considering to enforce its subpoena.
A spokesperson for the committee did not respond to a request for comment.
As CNN has previously reported, criminal contempt is one of three options Congress can pursue to enforce its subpoenas.
Another option is asking a court to enforce a congressional subpoena, a step known as civil contempt.
There’s also the extremely rare option of inherent contempt, which would involve asking the House or Senate sergeant-at-arms to detain or imprison a person found to be in contempt.
Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton said Monday evening that the university continues to respond “in good faith” to the committee’s inquiry, adding that it has now provided nearly 4,900 pages of information through 11 rounds of document submissions since January.
That response, according to Newton, includes “non-public information and internal communications” that the committee has requested.
“Harvard denounced antisemitism on our campus and have made clear that the University will continue to take actions to combat antisemitism in any form,” Newton said. “This includes ongoing efforts to engage with and learn from students, faculty and staff to identify the causes of antisemitic behaviors and address them when they occur on our campus.”
Harvard’s response on Monday included a four-page overview of steps the university has taken to fight antisemitism, including new security measures aimed at keeping students safe.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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