The Republican National Convention honored a group of fraternity members from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Wednesday night and gave a graduate of Harvard University the chance to slam his alma mater.
The UNC students gained notoriety this spring for protecting an American flag from being torn down during a pro-Palestinian protest on campus; soon after, supporters raised more than $500,000 in donations “to throw these frats the party they deserve,” as the GoFundMe page put it.
Seven members of various UNC fraternities appeared at the RNC, with one, Alex Johnson, speaking to the crowd about the April 30 protest.
“It was all about respect—not just for the cloth, but for everything that the flag stands for. Too many people have sacrificed everything for it. The least we can do was keep it fly, and tonight, we are proud to honor our flag again,” he said.
Later in the evening, Shabbos Kestenbaum, a recent Harvard graduate who is suing the university for failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests last fall, spoke to the crowd, calling Harvard “anti-Western,” “anti-American” and “antisemitic.” He also described discrimination he faced after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, including being harassed by classmates, receiving death threats online and having Israeli and American flags he had planted on campus grounds vandalized.
Though he once voted for Bernie Sanders, he said he plans to vote for former president Donald Trump this November due to what he called the left’s “antisemitic extremism.”
“Let’s elect a president who will instill patriotism in our school once again. Let’s elect a president who will confront terrorism and its supporters once again,” he said. “Let’s elect a president who recognizes that although Harvard and the Ivy Leagues have long abandoned the United States of America, the Jewish people never will, because Jewish values are American values and American values are Jewish values.”
