Harvard Business School Case Study Vilifies Israel |
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Late in the afternoon Eastern Time on Oct. 7, 2023, after reporting revealed that invading Iran-backed Hamas jihadists had perpetrated atrocities against Israel’s civilian population, 34 Harvard student organizations stated on Instagram that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
As Harvard fends off a Trump administration lawsuit alleging the university failed to protect Jewish students from “relentless antisemitic on-campus discrimination,” inquiring minds will want to know where Harvard students learned to vilify the Jewish state.
One likely source of such lessons, a recent controversy at Harvard Business School suggests, is the Harvard faculty.
The controversy revolves around a case study, “Divestment (A),” prepared under HBS professor Reshmaan N. Hussam’s supervision and authorized by HBS for use in her spring 2026 course, “Globalization and Emerging Markets.” Hussam specializes in “questions at the intersection of development and behavioral economics, with research in three areas: migration, health, and finance.” She is also a campus activist, having protested on campus in solidarity with pro-Palestinian protesters.
The case study examined whether the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPF-G) should divest from Caterpillar, IBM, Microsoft, and Unilever because of their “complicity” in Israel’s alleged war crimes against Palestinians and creation of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The case study, however, treated those odious allegations against the Jewish state as established facts. Whatever its relation to her primary research, the case study furthers Hussam’s campus activism.
Following student and alumni objections, Professor Hussam postponed teaching the original case study. In the second week of April she presented in class a revised version. Reportedly, it was less one-sided though class discussion was decidedly anti-Israel.
The case method is HBS’ signature approach to classroom instruction. It typically involves a 10- to 20-page case study drafted under faculty supervision describing a real business dilemma with no easy answers. Case studies promote the business school’s educational mission by conscientiously laying out complex facts, identifying competing interests and principles, and exploring conflicting interpretations of pertinent actions and judgments.
Since the original HBS case study bears the 2026 copyright “President and Fellows of Harvard College” while departing from HBS standards by serving as a polemical indictment of Israel, it deserves scrutiny.
In “A Critical Analysis of the HBS ‘Divestment (A)’ Case: Bias, Half-Truths, and........