John Fetterman endorses Mitt Romney for president — of Harvard
Sen. Mitt Romney may not be able to ease into retirement if his colleague John Fetterman has his way.
Fetterman (D-Pa.), 54, gave his full-throated endorsement Tuesday to the former Massachusetts governor for president — of Harvard University.
“As an alumnus of Harvard, and after this mad season of antisemitism at Columbia, I co-sign,” Fetterman, who received a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1999, posted on X alongside an image of a Washington Post op-ed calling for Romney (R-Utah) to take the reins of America’s oldest institute of higher learning.
“This former Governor of Massachusetts doesn’t need a paycheck,” added Fetterman, “but Harvard and its academic peers needs [sic] to recalibrate from far-left orthodoxy.”
Romney, 77, has a law and business degree from Harvard, and announced last year he would not seek a second six-year Senate term.
On Sunday, Columbia was rocked after one of its rabbis, Elie Buechler, warned Jewish students of “extreme antisemitism” and implored them to go home.
The op-ed author, Harvard alumnus Daniel Rosen, described himself as a “lifelong Democrat” who voted against Romney when he ran for president.
“I make this suggestion in the sincere and robust hope that he is someone who can navigate the university through painful but necessary reform and drive back the antisemitism that is tarnishing the institution’s credibility,” Rosen wrote.
Harvard has been embroiled in its own campus chaos amid a spate of anti-Israel protests and a string of antisemitic incidents on campus.
In December, Claudine Gay stepped down as university president amid a plagiarism scandal.
Gay had been under fire for her performance in a House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing, during which she declined to say whether calls for genocide of Jews violated the school’s code of conduct.
Harvard is currently being led by interim president Alan Garber, the university’s former provost.
A rep for Romney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fetterman has become one of the most outspoken pro-Israel Democrats in the Senate since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which killed an estimated 1,200 people, including 33 Americans.
Departing the upper chamber for a leadership gig in higher education is far from unprecedented. Former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) stepped down from the Senate last year to accept the position of president of the University of Florida.
