An anti-Israel group of Harvard University students condemned the recent appointment of the school’s new vice president and general counsel due to her former leadership roles at the U.S. Defense Department and a defense company that sold weapons to Israel.
Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, or HOOP, hung a banner stating, “War Criminals Not Welcome Here” alongside the name of the new appointee, Jennifer O’Connor, who took the helm July 29, the Harvard Gazette reported.
The group also hung a second banner over the summer reading, “Harvard Funds Genocide,” according to images posted on Instagram. The post’s caption criticized O’Connor for a “lack of experience” in higher education and her former position as general counsel for the Department of Defense.
“Yesterday, Harvard announced its appointment of Jennifer O’Connor as the new Vice President and general counsel of the university,” the Instagram post stated.
“She has 0 experience in higher education positions, yet her time as the former general counsel to the US Department of Defense and former Tech Law VP to weapons company Northrop Grumman make her a perfect fit at this complicit institution.”
The group also said O’Connor and Harvard are complicit in a “genocide” perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians, as O’Connor previously worked as vice president of technology and information law and policy with the defense company Northrop Grumman, which has sold weapons to Israel and worked with U.S. immigration authorities.
“At Northrop Grumman, she oversaw the legalities of a company which sells missiles to the genocidal Israeli regime, possesses one of the largest contracts with ICE, and develops racist biometric surveillance technology,” the group’s post stated.
“As Harvard becomes complicit in the death of over 40,000 Palestinians in the ongoing Gaza genocide, a war criminal in their cabinet is not surprising,” it stated.
HOOP, O’Connor and Harvard media relations have not responded to recent requests for comment from The College Fix.
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The Harvard Crimson reported that although O’Connor “does not have experience in representing higher education institutions, she will be tasked with leading Harvard’s legal arm when she begins her role later this month as the university confronts a series of political threats from Washington, including an ongoing set of subpoenas from Congress.”
HOOP has been involved in anti-Israel activism since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.
It was the primary group behind Harvard’s anti-Israel encampment, which included tents set up on campus as part of a broader movement at colleges and universities across the country with the goal of forcing schools to boycott Israel, according to the Harvard Crimson. The encampment ended in May, shortly after it was created.
Some members of HOOP, which is not a recognized student organization, were refused their Harvard degrees at graduation following their involvement in the encampment, according to Harvard Magazine.
HOOP’s protest of O’Connor is not the first effort by anti-Israel student groups to get faculty members fired who do not support their causes.
At Columbia, an April petition called for the resignation of Israeli Professor Shai Davidai after he spoke out against the Oct. 7 attacks. Davidai was also critical of the university’s response to a surge of anti-Semitism on campus.
“Students are being faced with normalized hate. There’s complete indifference from the university administration,” Davidai told The College Fix in a phone interview at the time.
At Pomona College, anti-Israel groups called for the resignation of President Gabrielle Starr after the police were called when an administrative building containing the president’s office was illegally occupied by students protesting the war in Gaza.
“As a supposed representative of your institution, your conduct has been fascistic in nature and absolutely reprehensible. Should you have any shame for your conduct, you will resign, drop the charges made on students, and revoke their suspensions immediately,” the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine said in an email.
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IMAGE: harvardoop/Instagram
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