Two Harvard University graduate students are facing criminal charges stemming from a confrontation with a Jewish student at a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Harvard Business School last Oct. 18, according to court records. The graduate students, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo and Ibrahim I.
Bharmal, are accused of making physical contact with the Jewish student as they attempted to remove him from the area and to block him from capturing video of demonstrators who were lying on the ground as part of a “die-in” protest, according to police reports filed in Brighton Municipal Court. Both men are charged with misdemeanor assault and battery and a civil rights violation. The incident, which attracted widespread attention last year after videos of it spread widely online, was one of several high-profile events that ratcheted up pressure on Harvard in the weeks after the Oct.
7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. It contributed to the decision by a Republican-controlled congressional committee to summon former Harvard president Claudine Gay to Washington last December for questioning over campus antisemitism. Gay later resigned in part because of the scathing criticism she faced for her testimony at the Dec.
5 hearing. The alleged assault has also become fodder for political battles over Harvard’s handling of antisemitism. In April, Representative Elise Stefanik, a member of the congressional committee that questioned Gay, sent university leaders a letter accusing them of a “delay of justic.