Harvard University is promoting segregated graduate ceremonies that it insists are not hosted by the school and do not serve as actual graduation ceremonies.
The ceremonies were first noted by journalist Christopher Rufo, who listed the school's event dates on his X page.
Documentation for the events is limited and reportedly includes just one public posting at the time of this publication.
Harvard's Office For Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging listed 10 different affinity celebrations in a recently unearthed document.
The first day's events were categorized as: Disability, Global Indigenous, Asian American/Pacific Islander/Desi-American, First Generation-Low Income, and Jewish celebrations.
The second day included: "Latinx," Lavender, Black, Veterans, and Arab celebrations.
Notably, Rufo's original report from December 2023 did not include white or Jewish celebrations and included an "LGBTQ+" celebration.
According to National Review (which obtained the document), the lavender celebration has replaced the aforementioned sexuality-based celebration. A Jewish celebration was also added, but a white celebration remained absent.
EXCLUSIVE: Harvard provided racially segregated "affinity group" celebrations at its commencement event earlier this year. Whites and Jews were the only groups not provided with celebrations.\n\nThe university has now deleted this page from its website.— (@)
Harvard has carefully labeled its documentation as to reflect that it is not the official host of the events and has shielded itself in event descriptions from any claims that the events could be seen as a graduation or any type of sanctioned, discriminatory event.
The event listing cited that the celebrations were hosted by "community partners and Alumni," and are "student lead gatherings" to celebrate the "diverse cultures, communities and identities present at Harvard."
It also stated that the celebrations are "open to all Harvard graduates who pre-register to attend."
One note that accompanied the listings explained that student groups and campus partners were holding the events.
"The Celebration Recognizing Arab Graduates, the Celebration Recognizing Jewish Graduates, and the Celebration Recognizing Veteran Graduates are being planned in collaboration with student groups and campus partners."
The public event page explained that the events "take place prior to Harvard University and School-based commencement programs" and do not serve as "graduations or convocation ceremonies." This was noted on the internally-circulated document, as well.
Still, the university offers a signup on its page and states that anyone interested in attending "one or more of the affinity celebrations" should complete the registration form.
The events are, however, officially listed as a collaboration between the Harvard Alumni Association, the Council of Deans of Students, the Commencement Office, student, staff, and faculty volunteers.
Also included were the new, fresher takes on DEI acronyms. Harvard boasts an Office For Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, which is shortened to OEDIB.
Within its science division, the university also has a Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging center. That sector has a vision to "shape and empower scientific innovation and learning on a foundation of community, inclusion, transparency, and partnership."
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The University of California at Berkeley has been accused of "systemic racism" for only having non-white residents work its community farm on select days.
The Mountain States Legal Foundation, a Constitution-affirming activist group based in Colorado, recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, alleging that the university's Gill Tract Community Farm exclusively offers its space to "Black, Indigenous, and People of Color," reported the New York Post.
William Trachman, general counsel for the constitutionalist group and a UC-Berkeley alumnus, stated, "UC-Berkeley thinks that racial segregation is progressive now, but it's no different than segregation of the past."
The regents of the University of California acquired 104 acres of land in Berkeley and Albany, California, in the early 20th century. Over the past decade, a small portion of the land has been used as a community farm.
According to the website for the glorified vegetable patch, the "UC Gill Tract Community Farm is a collaborative community project between the University of California Berkeley and the local community, focused on issues of food justice and urban farming. It is located in Albany, CA, at the corner of San Pablo Ave and Marin Ave."
The farm, largely if not entirely sustained by grant money, appears to be run by radical leftists.
Berkeley Student Farms, a coalition that supposedly includes the students involved in UC Gill Tract Community Farm, states on its website that the "work of decolonizing our land, our food, and our community is an ongoing and continuous effort. In partnership with BlPOC farmers and land stewards, we provide workshops centered around the liberation and decolonization of farming practices."
The Gill Tract Farm specifically issued a "statement of solidarity" condemning the police in 2020.
"We Must Defund the Police," said the statement. "We must eliminate the public's use of the police as first responders. We must eliminate their weaponization. We must eliminate their power to cause harm and death with impunity. We must not wait to end this racist reign of terror."
The farm also called for the dismantling of "white supremacy in our community."
The Post indicated that the complaint includes an email from a program manager at the farm that stresses, "Saturdays are exclusively BIPOC. Exceptions have only been made for events that are BIPOC-centered and with plenty of advance notice and planning."
The farm manager apparently also figured white residents for threats and walking sacrileges, writing, "I trust you stand in solidarity with upholding boundaries around that safe and sacred space."
"Preventing Caucasians from accessing Berkeley's College of Natural Resources Farm on Saturdays is a clear violation of Title VI, which bars educational institutions from engaging in or allowing race discrimination," said Trachman, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights under President Donald Trump.
Extra to possibly violating federal law, it appears the farm's alleged segregationist policy runs contrary to its own code.
The farm states in its litany of community agreements, "We do not shame or belittle others, or make unsolicited comments on people’s bodies, race, gender, religion, or other aspects of their personal identity."
Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the university, told the Post, "The anonymous texts attached to the complaint have no specific information about time or place. And, as you can see, the Gill Tract's website and calendar make no mention whatsoever of any program or activity of the sort described in the complaint."
Despite casting doubt on the farm's alleged segregationist Saturdays, Mogulof added that "the university takes complaints like this extremely seriously, and I can assure you that on Monday I will contact the appropriate people on campus in an effort to determine what the facts are."
Trachman may have singled out the farm, but he suggested that federal officials should take a hard look at UC-Berkeley for other programs possibly corrupted by "systemic racism."
This is not the first time the Mountain States Legal Foundation has filed complaints against the university over its discriminatory reflexes.
Last year, the group filed a civil rights complaint objecting to UC Berkeley's segregated graduation ceremonies, claiming they violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Office for Civil Rights subsequently opened a case against the university.
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President Joe Biden took a trip down memory lane this week in search of a group of people he prefers to House Republicans. He settled on segregationists.
Biden has long demonized the Republicans presently attempting to hold his administration to task for failing to secure the border and for censoring Americans.
In his notorious red-lit September 2022 speech at Independence Historical Park in Philadelphia, Biden claimed, "MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic." The geriatric Democrat has since expanded on this theme, stressing that the success of his top political rival and the Republicans who support him threatens "the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions."
The geriatric Democrat made clear at a fundraising event in San Francisco Wednesday evening that his political opponents are worse than "real racists." While his remarks are not catalogued among the White House's archive of speeches, they were captured in a White House press pool report.
"I've served with real racists," said Biden. "I've served with Strom Thurmond. I've served with all these guys that have set terrible records on race. But guess what? These guys are worse."
According to Biden, House Republicans today are apparently worse than Democrats who sought to tear apart communities on the basis of race because they "do not believe in basic democratic principles."
"By the time Strom left, he did terrible things," Biden reportedly went on to say, according to the New York Times. "I'm not making him more than he was. But my point is, at least you could work with some of these guys."
Strom Thurmond was a segregationist lawmaker and war hero who served as the Democratic governor of South Carolina from 1947 to 1951. After a supposed softening of his controversial stances and a brief flirtation with Republican politics, he unsuccessfully ran for president as a Dixiecrat candidate.
This is not the first time Biden has raised eyebrows reminiscing about his segregationist peers of ages past, and it's also not the first time he's invoked Thurmond to make a questionable point.
Blaze News previously reported that Biden claimed last year he had convinced Thurmond — who opposed the two major versions of the Civil Rights Act passed in 1957 and 1964 — to vote for the Civil Rights Act "before he died." This revisionist history prompted questions both about Biden's cognitive decline and grasp on reality. Not only did Thurmond vote against both versions of the act, Biden did not enter politics until 1971 and did not become a senator until 1973.
Biden and Thurmond apparently were not only close friends but in at least one instance saw eye to eye on segregation. Just as Thurmond opposed mandatory busing aimed at desegregating schools, the Washington Examiner noted that Biden similarly spoke in opposition to the policy in 1975, citing "black pride."
The Times highlighted that Biden's efforts to rehabilitate the reputation of segregationist Democrats of yesteryear also got him in trouble ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
At a New York City campaign fundraiser in June 2019, Biden fondly recalled in an affected Southern accent the "civility" of late Democratic Sens. James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia. Eastland said American blacks were an "inferior race." Talmadge indicated it would be better for schools to be shuttered than integrated.
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Michelle Wu, mayor of Boston, clearly didn’t consider the optics of hosting an “electeds of color’ party – a race-restricted event that excluded … you guessed it ... white people.
To make matters worse, the staffer who sent the email invitation accidentally sent it to everyone on the council, including the Caucasian members.
Understandably, people are furious. Wu is facing heavy criticism from conservatives and liberals alike, and yet somehow, she’s decided to defend her actions.
Dave Rubin plays the clip of her response to the incident.
“Given some of the strife that exists though in this council, are you concerned this lends itself at all to further divisiveness?” a reporter asked.
“No, I mean, again, this is a group that has been in place for many, many years. We want to be a city where everyone's identity is embraced and that there are spaces and communities that we can help support,” Wu ignorantly responded.
“Oh, there are spaces and communities that we can help support, so we can look at a bunch of people by their skin color and say, ‘Don't eat with us; don't come to this dinner party,”’ mocks Dave. “That's what we used to call racism.”
“If a bunch of white people wanted to have dinner with no colored people, as you call them, you'd call them racist, so it's racist whichever way it goes,” he explains.
But Wu clearly doesn’t share Dave’s sentiment.
“It was truly just an honest mistake that went out in typing the email field, and I look forward to celebrating with everyone at the holiday parties that we will have besides this one. … It is my intention that we can, again, be a city that lives our values and creates space for all kinds of communities to come together,” Wu said.
“Lady, you’re racist,” Dave says.
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