Raising Harvard’s differences with the US House of Representatives

A US House committee announced Friday that it has subpoenaed Harvard University for failing to produce documents related to the committee’s investigation into anti-Semitism, a move the university regretted. He described it as burdensome and unjustified.

Harvard University was asked last month to turn over a large trove of materials, including documents and other items, showing its responses to discrimination and reports of anti-Semitic practices, according to a Reuters report.

Harvard has provided comprehensive and good faith responses in 10 installments totaling more than 3,500 pages that directly address key areas of inquiry raised by the committee, a university spokeswoman told Reuters. More than 2,500 pages of these documents are related to the committee’s investigation on anti-Semitism.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, Republican, who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, said quality, not quantity, is the committee’s concern. More than 1,000 documents received by the committee are now publicly available. And Harvard, in its recent response, failed to provide essential materials on two of the four priority requests.

The subpoenas order Harvard officials to produce a series of documents on March 4. “Although this subpoena is not warranted, Harvard remains committed to cooperating with the committee and will continue to provide additional material, while protecting the legitimate privacy, safety and security concerns of our community,” the university said.

Claudine Guy resigned as Harvard’s president last month after allegations of plagiarism and violent reactions to her congressional testimony about anti-Semitism.