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Accusing him of “failing up” and “cashing out,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations says there should be no place at the University of New Hampshire for former Biden advisor Jake Sullivan, and it’s calling on the university to give him the boot.

Sullivan, who served as President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, was recently named as a senior fellow at UNH’s Carsey School of Public Policy, and the inaugural Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Statecraft and World Order at the Kennedy School at Harvard. The 48-year-old Democrat is also married to first-term U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander, who is currently considering a 2026 run for U.S. Senate. 

CAIR’s Deputy Executive Director Edward Mitchell said Sullivan’s role directing the Biden White House’s foreign policy, especially its support for Israel, disqualifies him from those prominent positions.

“Government officials who flout federal law, lie to the American public, and enable deadly foreign policy catastrophes should not be able to cash out on their disastrous time in office by failing up and taking up cushy positions at prominent colleges and universities.”

Mitchell accused Sullivan acted as a “shadow president” for Biden, echoing a line of attack Republicans made on the enfeebled president during his time in office.

In a letter to UNH President Liz Chilton and the Carsey School of Public Policy’s Stephen Bird, CAIR expressed outrage for botched Biden policies overseen by Sullivan.

“As National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan was a ‘chief architect’ of the most disastrous foreign policy decisions made by the Biden administration. He oversaw the catastrophic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021—an operation that ended with a U.S. drone strike that killed an innocent Afghan family. Under his leadership, no one was held accountable for this war crime,” wrote Robert McCaw, CAIR’s Government Affairs Department Director.

CAIR has a long history of anti-Israel action and rhetoric, so it’s no surprise it singled out the Biden administration’s support for the Jewish state.

“Mr. Sullivan coordinated the Biden administration’s unwavering support for the Israeli government’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Gaza. He oversaw arms shipments, provided diplomatic cover, and repeatedly affirmed Israel’s human rights abuses despite overwhelming evidence of systematic violence against Palestinian civilians,” McCaw wrote.

“By granting Sullivan this prominent role, UNH sends the troubling message that architects of destructive, failed and illegal policies can ‘fail up’ and be rewarded with prestigious academic positions, regardless of the grave human rights implications of their actions.”

UNH issued a statement Wednesday backing Sullivan.

“The Carsey School is nationally recognized for research, policy education, and bringing people together for thoughtful dialogue to address important societal challenges. We seek to give our students the skills to start and build impactful careers, learning from both leading scholars and leading practitioners in policy, community development, and public management,” the statement reads. “Jake Sullivan’s deep experience in federal government and public policy led us to name him a senior fellow, an unpaid honorific position given to those with a significant role contributing to the public discourse on policy. We look forward to having him contribute to our academic community.”

Sullivan’s wife, Goodlander, is a former UNH professor. The couple lives in a $1.2 million mansion in Portsmouth, though Goodlander rented a property in the Second Congressional District just a few weeks before becoming a candidate last year’s Democratic primary.

As Biden’s foreign policy advisor, Sullivan took incoming political fire from both sides in the Israel v. Hamas conflict. Last May, 26 centrist Democrats in Congress wrote Sullivan to complain about the administration’s decision to withhold weapons from Israel as they fought Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Goodlander was already running for Congress at the time, but she refused to comment on the Biden policy or say if she supported or opposed withholding weapons from the Jewish state.

Days after taking office, President Donald Trump reversed the Biden policy and released the weapons to Israel.

NHJournal has reached out to Goodlander for a response.

As Granite State college campuses prepare for a new semester to begin in the coming weeks, the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire has written Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire urging them to ensure the safety of Jewish faculty and students.

“Our goal at the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire is to protect Jewish students and faculty, to ensure they are safe and feel comfortable on campus. It’s not our job to decide who gets prosecuted for breaking the rules and who doesn’t,” Federation board chair Tracy Richmond told NHJournal. “All we are asking is that the universities follow and enforce their own rules and policies, and that they do so consistently.”

In the letter, sent to Dartmouth’s Sian Beilock and UNH’s Elizabeth Chilton, the Federation wrote, “As you know, there has been a surge of antisemitism since Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Sadly, New Hampshire has not been immune, and our universities have faced the same disruptive anti-Israel protests as schools in other states.”

“Jewish students have the right to access education free from intimidation, harassment, and discrimination. Furthermore, there is no legitimate justification for students who encourage violence,” the Federation added.

Neither Beilock nor Chilton responded to NHJournal’s request for comment. And according to Richmond, the schools have yet to respond to the Federation’s letter dated July 25.

The fundamental message, Richmond said, is that institutions should impose the same rules on all students, and they should enforce them as well.

“We ask you to make it clear that activists cannot disrupt the functioning of the university without penalty. We ask UNH to protect viewpoint diversity, civil discourse, and the rights and safety of Jewish and pro-Israel students,” the Federation wrote. “We urge you to continue consistently enforcing rules and ensure that students and faculty that break them face disciplinary consequences.”

Both UNH and Dartmouth were rocked by protests in May, part of a national effort by pro-Palestinian and some pro-Hamas groups. More than 100 people were arrested between the two schools, the majority at Dartmouth. Nearly all of the people arrested at UNH recently had their cases dropped.

While some protesters focused their message on how Israel is waging its war with Hamas, others expressed anti-Jewish sentiments, including the antisemitic chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.” At UNH, protesters chanted, “U.S., Israel — go to hell!”

The antisemitism isn’t limited to campuses. Across the U.S., there has been a surge in anti-Jewish violence, including mobs pouring into the streets of Washington to protest a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Those protests featured the burning of American flags, waving Hamas flags, assaulting police, and vandalizing monuments with graffiti including “Hamas is coming.”

In New Hampshire, Marxist radicals with Palestinian Action U.S. targeted the Israeli-owned Elbit Systems facility in Merrimack for destruction during a protest weeks after the Oct. 7 terror attack.

The Federation’s letters to UNH and Dartmouth come as U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns denied a motion to dismiss the antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard, ruling that the Ivy League school “failed its Jewish students,” based on the evidence.

According to The Wall Street Journal, six Jewish students brought the federal lawsuit claiming they didn’t feel safe on campus and that Harvard didn’t punish antisemitic student protesters and faculty members. Stearns wrote in his ruling that Harvard’s public statements that it would discipline students and faculty accused of antisemitism were mostly “proved hollow.”

Richmond told NHJournal the Harvard ruling is a win that will help hold institutions, like colleges, accountable.

“I am thrilled Harvard is being held accountable and I believe they should have their day in court to explain their policies and behavior,” Richmond said.

Colleges already have rules in place protecting students from discrimination and violence, Richmond said. The Federation wants to make sure those rules don’t get ignored when it comes to protecting Jewish students and faculty.

“And if these institutions have rules in place, and Jewish students or faculty still don’t feel safe on campus — that’s the problem,” Richmond said.

“We wrote to UNH and Dartmouth to let them know that, when the new semester begins and students return to campus, the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire is here, and we will be watching.”

The regulatory order forcing the Massachusetts General Brigham healthcare system to rein in costs is about to expire, and New Hampshire is wondering what that means for Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover.

“I am concerned about it,” said D.J. Bettencourt, commissioner at the New Hampshire Insurance Department.

Mass General Brigham merged with Wentworth-Douglass in 2018, making the Seacoast region hospital part of MGB’s massive healthcare system. MGB is so big the state of Massachusetts intervened in 2022 to slow the network’s rising patient costs that were warping the Bay State’s healthcare market.

The Performance Improvement Plan imposed by the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission is set to end next month, and there is worry that MGB will start ramping up costs again throughout its system, including at Wentworth-Douglass.

Matt Cover, an employee benefits consultant with Willis Towers Watson, a global insurance advisory firm, said hospitals and large healthcare systems are looking for increases, teeing off of public perception that hospitals suffered during the COVID years.

“As their contracts come up for renewal, hospitals all across the country are demanding unprecedented price increases. These are large corporations trying to squeeze higher profits out of a healthcare system that is already too expensive. Patients, their families, and their employers will ultimately bear the burden of these price hikes,” Cover told NHJournal.

The trend of hospitals consolidating into healthcare systems was long presented as a way to improve care and save money for patients, especially when those mergers needed state approval. But data from a Harvard Medical School report show the savings never happened, and patient care was only marginally better.

“One of the key arguments for hospital mergers and practice acquisition was that health systems would deliver better-value care for patients. This study provides the most comprehensive evidence yet that this isn’t happening,” said Nancy Beaulieu, a research associate in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School’s Blavatnik Institute.

The Massachusetts Health Policy Committee intervened in 2022 after years of skyrocketing costs associated with MGB pushed up costs for all health systems and insurance carriers in the Bay State.

The HPC found Mass General Brigham, the state’s largest health provider, was also charging more than any other provider. In fact, the Committee found that MGB’s commercial contracts cost $293 million from 2014 to 2019.

After posting operating losses last year attributed to inflation and workforce shortages, MGB reported bringing in $102 million in positive operational revenue in the third and fourth financial quarters. The system brought in $18.8 billion during the 2023 fiscal year. MGB’s premium revenue went up to $1.5 billion, a 63 percent increase from the previous year. 

Those numbers represent MGB’s operation under the Performance Improvement Plan to bring down costs. Now that oversight of MGB’s prices is ending next month. New Hampshire has no role in reviewing MGB’s costs and spending. But if the end of the Massachusetts order starts impacting Wentworth-Douglass, Bettencourt said New Hampshire can take action.

“Should that dynamic change or should Wentworth-Douglass be affected as a result of MGB’s attempt to get into compliance with the Performance Improvement Plan, we will work with our commercial insurance carriers, officials at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, and the New Hampshire Hospital Association to understand its implications for New Hampshire consumers. Should there be adverse consequences, we will respond appropriately within the preview of our regulatory oversight under state law,” Bettencourt said.

The 2018 merger is supposed to leave Wentworth-Douglass locally controlled by its Board of Trustees. However, there are indications that MGB is subsuming more of the identity and control of the Dover facility. Wentworth-Douglass is now rebranded as Mass General Brigham Wentworth-Douglass, and the hospital lost its president and CEO position at the top, replaced by a president and COO position.

Wentworth-Douglass initially agreed to answer questions from NHJournal but did not respond after more than 24 hours.