The growing Harvard scandal surrounding the university’s response to campus anti-Israel activism intensified after Elom Tettey-Tamaklo—who faced a criminal charge for assaulting an Israeli student—returned to campus as a full-time “Graduate Teaching Fellow.” Tettey-Tamaklo began the position in August, according to his LinkedIn profile, where he says he now helps “advise faculty on curriculum design.”
Tettey-Tamaklo became the focus of national scrutiny after video captured him accosting a first-year Israeli business school student during an October 2023 “die-in” protest outside Harvard Business School. Prosecutors charged him with misdemeanor assault and battery, and a Suffolk County judge later ordered him to complete an anger management class and 80 hours of community service. As the case unfolded, the Trump administration demanded Harvard expel him, insisting the school remove “the students involved in the Oct. 18 assault of an Israeli Harvard Business School student.” Instead, Harvard hired him.
Harvard never disciplined Tettey-Tamaklo or fellow protester Ibrahim Bharmal and, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, refused to cooperate with investigators—actions that “prevented the office from identifying additional perpetrators.” The only internal step Harvard took came in November 2023, when it removed Tettey-Tamaklo from his freshman proctor role due to “student discomfort.”
The university also highlighted Bharmal, publishing a blog celebrating his time at Harvard before his criminal case concluded. After entering a diversion program, Bharmal received a $65,000 Harvard Law Review fellowship supporting work at the Council on American-Islamic Relations’s Los Angeles office.
The Israeli student who was assaulted, Yoav Segev, sued Harvard in July, accusing the school of “misleading tactics, obfuscation, and misrepresentations.” Internal Harvard texts released by Congress showed President Alan Garber privately suggesting that Segev’s filming of the protest “appears provocative,” as he urged administrators not to issue a statement on the incident.
