‘As I look to the future, I do so with a full heart and a clear mind,’ Ibrahim Bharmal writes in blog post featured on HLS website
Harvard Law School published a blog post from one of the students facing criminal charges for assaulting an Israeli classmate. The post, from former Harvard Law Review editor Ibrahim Bharmal, features Bharmal’s praise for something called the “Crimmigration Clinic,” a law school course in which students work on federal immigration cases. He does not mention that he is facing criminal charges connected to the assault, which was captured on video.
In the post, titled, “Crimmigration lawyering: Advocating for immigrants caught in two unjust systems,” Bharmal touts the “close-knit immigrant and Muslim community” he grew up in in Southern California, indicating that it taught him “that our legal systems and institutions do not distribute justice evenly.” He also wrote of his “future” as an attorney, saying, “I know who I want to advocate for. I know the kind of law I want to practice. And I know, without a doubt, that this clarity will be the foundation of a long, committed career in service to immigrants and the fight for justice.”
Bharmal’s criminal case could also impact that future. Along with Harvard divinity school graduate student Elom-Tettey Tamaklo, Bharmal was charged last May with misdemeanor assault in connection with his behavior at a “die-in” protest that took place shortly after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo were captured on camera accosting an Israeli business school student, surrounding him and making it difficult for him to walk freely as keffiyeh-clad onlookers shouted, “SHAME!”
The case has attracted attention from prominent lawmakers, both past and present. Footage of the ordeal, first reported in the Washington Free Beacon, prompted outrage from prominent Harvard Business School alumni, including former Sen. Mitt Romney (R.), who cited the school in an October 2023 letter as proof that university leaders were “paralyzed” in the face of “expressions of hate and vitriol against Jews.” Reps. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) and Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) similarly savaged Harvard after the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office accused the university of stonewalling an investigation into the protest.
Harvard nonetheless published Bharmal’s blog as the Trump administration reviewed its $9 billion in federal grants and contracts. On Friday—one day after Harvard published Bharmal’s blog—the administration demanded from the school a series of policy changes and reforms, including the expulsion of Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo, both of whom remained in good standing at Harvard in the months following the “die-in.” Harvard rejected those demands on Monday, and the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in Harvard grants hours later.
Harvard Law School did not respond to a request for comment.
Bharmal was first charged with misdemeanor assault and battery and with violations of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, which prohibits attempts to “intimidate or interfere with … any other person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the constitution.” A judge dismissed the latter charge in February, though the assault charge remains.
Bharmal was supposed to be arraigned last June, a month after he was charged. But local prosecutors twice postponed the arraignment because Harvard police declined to perform a “follow up investigation” into the “die-in,” the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office told the Free Beacon in September. The investigation would have helped “identify any additional perpetrators” and generate “inculpatory/exculpatory evidence.” Attorneys told the Free Beacon at the time that they had never heard of police refusing an investigation request from prosecutors.
Bharmal is due in court for a hearing on Thursday. As his case progressed through Boston’s court system, he landed an immigration law clerkship in Washington, D.C.’s public defender’s office, which thanked Bharmal for his “commitment to our clients.”
“I’d like to serve my home communities, specifically supporting immigrants, asylum-seekers, and other newly arriving neighbors,” Bharmal said in the June 2024 LinkedIn post from the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, which revealed that Bharmal was “training to be a bollywood spin instructor.”
