Harvard Faculty Statement In Support of Academic Freedom

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 Medical School
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
96. Amir Mohareb, Harvard Medical School
97. Eman Ansari, Harvard Medical School
98. Mohamed Jarraya, Harvard Medical School
99. Liz McKenna, Harvard Kennedy School
100. Maggie Doherty, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
101. Hussein Rashid, Harvard Divinity School
102. Juliana Morris, Harvard Medical School
103. Sandra Smith, Harvard Kennedy School
104. Kaia Stern, Harvard Graduate School of Education
105. Nicholas Bloom, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
106. Theodore Weatherwax, Harvard Medical School
107. Rita Hamad, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
108. Emmet von Stackelberg, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
109. Areej Hassan, Harvard Medical School
110. David Showalter, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
111. Amina Elbendary, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
112. Pedja Stojicic, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
113. Ryan Enos, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
114. Raif S. Geha, Harvard Medical School
115. Chance Bonar, Harvard Divinity School
116. Nikhil Mathews, Harvard Medical School
117. Hesham Hamoda, Harvard Medical School
118. Talal Chatila, Harvard Medical School
119. Jennifer Leaning, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
120. Gretchen Brion-Meisels, Harvard Graduate School of Education
121. Nicole Noll, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
122. Jon Hanson, Harvard Law School