A Pennsylvania college professor has been indicted on a federal cyberstalking charge after prosecutors accused him of sending months of anti‑Semitic threats to a Jewish coworker and the coworker’s family.
Guangtian Ha, an associate professor of religion at Haverford College near Philadelphia, was arrested on Oct. 6 after a Sept. 30 indictment charging him with one count of cyberstalking, which carries up to five years in prison if convicted.
He remains in custody pending an Oct. 13 detention hearing; the court has not yet decided whether to keep him detained pending trial.
Prosecutors say Ha used four anonymous X accounts to send more than 50 threatening messages between Oct. 2025 and May 2026, and FBI investigators linked those accounts to his home internet, cellphone and Haverford network.
Ha admitted during an FBI interview that he created and operated the accounts.
Haverford President Wendy Raymond announced on Oct. 6 that Ha was placed on administrative leave; he was already on sabbatical and not teaching.
Threats Against Coworker’s Family
The harassment began in October 2025 when an anonymous account posted a Google Maps photograph of the coworker’s mailbox with an eyes emoji. The coworker and spouse, who have three young children, asked Google to blur their home and installed extra security equipment, according to prosecutors.
Threats resumed in January; on Feb. 27 a message referenced a newly installed security camera, stating, “Blurring your home on Google map and installing a security camera next to your mailbox won’t help.”
The coworker’s spouse left home with the three children for about a week, and the family stopped letting the children play in the front yard or wait for the school bus.
Other messages invoked Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust, called for exterminating Jews and threatened the family.
On April 15 an account posted the infant child’s name, then about seven months old, and warned the parent to watch the child.
Digital Evidence Linked to Professor
The detention motion says the four accounts were created using internet addresses assigned to Ha’s home. Verizon records linked his cellphone number to 43 of 45 occasions when the accounts were accessed via Verizon Wireless internet, and Haverford provided records showing a device authenticated to the college network using Ha’s email address.
Prosecutors allege Ha used anonymous email accounts and other techniques to conceal his identity, and they noted a separate account began sending similar messages in late September, including an Oct. 5 post referencing the coworker’s children playing in the front yard.
Investigators have not identified who operated that newer account, and prosecutors argue that restricting internet access would not adequately protect the family from further harassment.
Academic Career
Ha studied sociology as an undergraduate at Peking University, earning recognition as one of 10 Academic Rising Stars in 2007. He earned a doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University and held postdoctoral positions at SOAS, University of London.
His scholarship focuses on Islam, ethnic identity and political authority in China; his 2022 book The Sound of Salvation examined religious chanting among Sufi Muslims in northwestern China and won the 2023 Clifford Geertz Prize from the Society for the Anthropology of Religion.
Haverford’s Previous Anti‑Semitism Lawsuit
In 2024, Ha’s public statements about Israel and Zionism were cited in a federal lawsuit accusing Haverford of failing to address anti‑Semitism. Plaintiffs cited social media posts attributed to Ha calling for Israel’s dismantling and comparing Zionism to Nazism.
A January 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Gerald McHugh found the plaintiffs had not shown that college officials with authority knew about the posts.
Haverford settled the case in August 2026, and President Raymond acknowledged on Aug. 7 that Jewish community members who support Israel had been deeply hurt by campus events since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, describing the institution’s response as a failure.
The settlement requires professors not to discriminate against students or others because of their commitment to Judaism, Israel or Zionism, and it subjects violations of the college’s anti‑discrimination policies to disciplinary action.
