Harvard University President Claudine Gay was able to ascend to the ivy league university’s top post by being a major champion for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz said Monday.

Gay received major blowback after her congressional testimony last week, where she refused to say whether students and applicants would be held accountable for using phrases like “from the river to the sea,” which has connotations of wiping out Israel. Despite multiple calls for her to step down, over 500 Harvard faculty members signed a letter defending Gay, saying that the university’s “independence” needed to be protected amid “political pressures.”

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“[DEI] is the main cause of anti-Semitism today. It divides students along racial and religious lines and creates a zero-sum game. If you’re in favor of one group you’re [against] another group,” Dershowitz told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. “It is a real problem. It is anti-intellectual, it is dishonest in many ways. Look, it uses the word diversity, but only means racial diversity. Less than 3% of the faculty at Harvard identify as conservative. They say equity, which suggests equality, but equity is the exact opposite of equality. Indeed under equity, if you dare to quote Martin Luther King’s dream of a world where children are judged not by the color of their skin, but by content of their character, you have committed a microaggression. Inclusion, Larry Summers made it clear that inclusion has excluded Jews over the years.”

University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bock resigned Saturday amid pressure over Magill’s congressional testimony, which resulted in the school losing a $100 million donation. Magill had backtracked on her initial remarks to Congress. (RELATED: ‘Despicable’: Harvard Gets Dragged On Social Media After Its President Clarifies Position On Genocide Against Jews)

“So, it’s a fraudulent concept, a dangerous concept, but 700 of my colleagues at Harvard, professors have come out pandering to President Gay and calling for her to remain on,” Dershowitz continued. “They don’t want people like you and me, who are now outsiders to have any influence on Harvard but they refuse to answer the legitimate points made by people like Bill Ackerman, they just dismiss him out of hand because he’s a rich alumni.”

Gay issued a clarification in a statement posted on X Wednesday, a day after she was grilled by Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York about antisemitic actions on the university’s campus.

“Schools are, colleges and universities are not only the current faculty, not only the current students but they are alumni and they are the future students, they are great institutions and DEI is destroying these institutions and President Gay is a product of DEI,” Dershowitz said. “She championed it. That’s how she became president. She is the symbol of DEI and the symbol has failed and she must also recognize her own failure and her role in that failure.”

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