Ashley Moody slams Harvard for hiring protester arrested for assaulting Israeli student

U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody slammed Harvard University for hiring a student accused of assaulting pro-Israel peers during campus protests.

The Plant City Republican criticized the university after the New York Post reported that Elom Tettey-Tamaklo had been hired as a graduate teaching Fellow. According to the academic’s LinkedIn, he took on that role in August, months after he faced misdemeanor charges of assaulting an Israeli classmate.

“Leaders must step up to not only condemn antisemitism but show action to faithfully combat this evil. Unfortunately, many profess to want to quash this abhorrent behavior but then make decisions and promote others that bolster antisemitism with a wink and a nod,” Moody posted on social media.

Especially discouraging to Moody, she said, was that she had spoken to Harvard’s leadership specifically about the need to drive out antisemitism from its campus culture.

“Earlier this year, I sat down with Harvard President Alan Garber. During our meeting, I expressed my deep frustration with Harvard’s inaction regarding students who violated the civil rights of, and even assaulted, their peers simply because of their religion. It’s a reason I introduced the RECLAIM Act to send a message that these schools must be held accountable. I also pointed out that the university continues to reward those that support an anti-Israel agenda,” she posted.

“With this latest hire, it appears Harvard remains on an indefensible path. This is another example of why a once-great university is becoming at best a national embarrassment and at worst purposefully promoting harmful ideals. Harvard should refocus its mission on again becoming a university that students aspire to attend for academic excellence and not a utopia for woke radicals.”

The Recouping Educational Contributions Linked to Antisemitic Institutional Misconduct (RECLAIM) Act (S 1069) would allow the government to claw back federal grants to institutions of higher education if it is found they have violated students’ civil rights. The bill in March was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Tettey-Tamaklo was charged with assault and battery in 2023, according to the Post, after video went viral of him and other protesters surrounding an Israeli student and shouting “shame.” The incident occurred amid campus protests nationwide of the Israeli conflict in Gaza following Hamas terror attacks that year. The Post said he was ordered to complete anger management courses and complete community service, but that the case was ultimately dismissed in November 2024.

Tettey-Tamaklo was a student at Harvard Divinity School at the time and one of the organizers of Graduate Students 4 Palestine, according to The Harvard Crimson. He has discussed his involvement in student activism on social media, including after a speech to the Muslim Public Affairs Council Foundation in Los Angeles.

“I shared some reflections on the importance of student activism and the need to keep Palestine at the forefront of our minds,” he wrote on LinkedIn two weeks ago.

When others shared the Post story about his hire on his page, Tetty-Tamaklo shared news reports noting that a Judge dismissed antidiscrimination lawsuits from Harvard grad students who claimed they faced pervasive antisemitism at the school.

“While the court does not condone an assault on a fellow student by campus protestors, nothing in the Amended Complaint plausibly supports the notion that his assailants’ conduct was motivated by race-based antisemitism,” the Judge wrote in a ruling, as reported by the Crimson.