Harvard Faculty Response to "Combating Antisemitism"

If we are on the side of humanity we must urgently speak up to try and avert the loss of innocent life.“ Appreciate all the people with a moral compass who aren't afraid to stand up for Palestine

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Dear President Gay:

As Harvard faculty, we have been astonished by the pressure from donors, alumni, and even some on this campus to silence faculty, students, and staff critical of the actions of the State of Israel. It is important to acknowledge the patronizing tone and format of much of the criticism you have received as well as the outright racism contained in some of it.

We were nevertheless profoundly dismayed by your November 9 message entitled “Combating Antisemitism.” The University's commitment to intellectual freedom and open dialogue seems to be giving way to something else entirely: a model of education in which the meaning of terms once eligible for interpretation is prescribed from above by a committee whose work was, on Tuesday, described to the faculty as only beginning.

There should surely be limits to what is speakable, even in a university. Saying things that are plainly untrue – denying the Holocaust, for example – merits condemnation. Derogating other members of the community in racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic language merits condemnation.

There must, however, be room on a university campus for debate about the actions of states, including of the State of Israel. It cannot be ruled as ipso facto antisemitic to question the actions of this particular ethno-nationalist government any more than it would be ipso facto racist to question the actions of Robert Mugabe's ethno-nationalist government in Zimbabwe.

Nor can arguments that characterize Israel as an “apartheid" state or its recent actions as “ethnic cleansing” or even “genocide” be considered automatically antisemitic, regardless of whether one concurs with such arguments. The University’s recently-announced “Discrimination and Bullying Policies and Procedures,” it is useful to remember, includes “political belief” (and thus presumably its expression) as a protected category.

It is understandable that in the shadow of the twentieth-century history of Europe, Palestine, and Israel, as well as the attacks of October 7 and the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza, you would want to remind members of our community that their words have meaning.

And yet, at a moment when an affiliate of the University has with apparent impunity stood in the yard and accused students of supporting terrorism, your delineation of the limits of acceptable expression on our campus is dangerously one-sided.

Similarly, the phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free" has a long and complicated history. Its interpretation deserves, and is receiving, sustained and ongoing inquiry and debate. Singling it out as necessarily implying removalism or even eliminationism – when over a million Palestinians have been forced from their homes and over ten thousand civilians, including four thousand children, have been slain in Gaza, actions which the Holocaust historian Omer Bartov suggests in the New York Times may amount to a “crime against humanity” being executed with “genocidal intent” – is imprudent as a matter of university policy and badly misjudged as an act of moral leadership.

We call on you to present a balanced commitment to the support of intellectual freedom at Harvard by taking the following steps:

1. Resisting calls to suspend and/or decertify the Palestine Solidarity Committee in retaliation for its public statements and advocacy, and resisting calls to set aside the University’s normal disciplinary procedures to prematurely sanction students and employees because of concerns raised about their political activity absent specific allegations of wrongdoing (and those already thusly sanctioned must be reinstated pending a procedurally sound investigation);

2. Directing the President’s Advisory Group on Antisemitism to explain its definition of antisemitism to the University community, as requested at the FAS faculty meeting of November 7, before recommending any policies touching upon the freedom of thought and expression on our campus;

3. Explicitly and specifically affirming the University’s commitment to the freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression in light of the extraordinary pressure being brought to bear upon critics of the State of Israel and advocates of the Palestinian people, and indicating that there can be no tolerance for a “Palestine exception” to free speech;

4. Creating an advisory group on Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism (as suggested at the FAS faculty meeting of November 7).

Sincerely,

1. Walter Johnson, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

2. Kirsten Weld, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

3. Vijay Iyer, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

4. Deidre Lynch, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

5. Nikolas Bowie, Harvard Law School

6. Diane Moore, Harvard Divinity School

7. Namwali Serpell, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

8. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Harvard Kennedy School

9. Sidney Chalhoub, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

10. Christopher Hasty, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

11. Salma Abu Ayyash, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

12. Jesse B. Bump, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

13. Ryan D. Doerfler, Harvard Law School

14. Atalia Omer, Harvard Divinity School

15. Bram Wispelwey, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School

16. Sara Roy, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

17. Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

18. Neel Mukherjee, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

19. Margareta Matache, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

20. Soham Patel, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

21. John Womack, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

22. Musa Syeed, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

23. Jacinda Tran, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

24. Vincent Brown, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

25. Adhy Kim, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

26. Richard Thomas, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

27. Lara Jirmanus, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

28. Altaf Saadi, Harvard Medical School

29. Hibah Osman, Harvard Medical School

30. Lisa Thompson, Harvard School of Dental Medicine

31. Khameer Kidia, Harvard Medical School

32. Mary T Bassett, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

33. Sawsan Abdulrahim, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

34. Cemal Kafadar, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

35. Lauren Kaminsky, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

36. Amy Hollywood, Harvard Divinity School

37. Malak Rafla, Harvard Medical School

38. Bassima Abdallah, Harvard Medical School

39. Alejandra Caraballo, Harvard Law School

40. Eleanor Craig, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

41. Matylda Figlerowicz, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

42. Adam Haber, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

43. Tara K. Menon, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

44. Arunabh Ghosh, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

45. Joel Suarez, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

46. Karameh Kuemmerle, Harvard Medical School

47. Sam Marks, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

48. Rosie Bsheer, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

49. Nader Uthman, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

50. Glenda Carpio, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

51. Adaner Usmani, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

52. Paulina Alberto, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

53. Sarah Darghouth, Harvard Medical School

54. Alisa Khan, Harvard Medical School

55. Patricia Stoeck, Harvard Medical School

56. Hajirah Saeex, Harvard Medical School

57. Sherar Andalcio, Harvard Medical School

58. Diana L. Eck, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

59. Gordon Schiff, Harvard Medical School

60. Mahmoud Abu Hazeem, Harvard Medical School

61. Rania El Fekih, Harvard Medical School

62. Hicham Skali, Harvard Medical School

63. Ramona Dvorak, Harvard Medical School

64. Kamal Itani, Harvard Medical School

65. Haytham Kaafarani, Harvard Medical School

66. Ousmane Kane, Harvard Divinity School

67. David U. Himmelstein, Harvard Medical School

68. Joycelyn Ronda, Harvard Medical School

69. Christian Williams, Harvard Law School

70. Steffie Woodhandler, Harvard Medical School

71. Ju Yon Kim, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

72. M. Amin Arnaout, Harvard Medical School

73. Autumn Allen, Harvard Graduate School of Education

74. Avik Chatterjee, Harvard Medical School

75. Farhana Sharmeen, Harvard Medical School

76. Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School

77. Aisha James, Harvard Medical School

78. Corey Hardin, Harvard Medical School

79. Caroline Light, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

80. Karen Huang, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

81. George Aumoithe, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

82. Michelle Morse, Harvard Medical School

83. Sadeq Rahimi, Harvard Medical School

84. Sugata Bose, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

85. Lorenzo Bondioli, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

86. Michael Bronski, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

87. David Kennedy, Harvard Law School

88. Christina Villarreal, Harvard Graduate School of Education

89. Hilary Rantisi, Harvard Divinity School

90. Kassem Safa, Harvard Medical School

91. Huma Farid, Harvard Medical School

92. Bernhard Nickel, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

93. Amanda Raffoul, Harvard Medical School

94. Martha Ann Selby, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences

95. Marshall Ganz, Harvard Kennedy School

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