BY MARJORIE HEINS
Harvard College’s announcement final month that it has adopted the Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism was a sufficiently severe blow to tutorial freedom at that hallowed establishment that it motivated me, as a graduate of Harvard Legislation College, to submit a letter to Harvard, the alumni journal. As Hank Reichman’s “Anticipatory Obedience at Harvard,” my very own earlier essay “What These Faculty Presidents Ought to Have Stated,” and plenty of different writings have identified, the IHRA definition, which conflates antisemitism with questioning Zionism or making use of a “double customary” to the actions of Israel, suppresses free and open dialogue of certainly one of right this moment’s most urgent worldwide human rights points.
I emailed my letter on January 26 however have but to obtain any response—not even an acknowledgment. I’m positive the journal has obtained loads of mail on this topic, and I suppose it is going to publish some letters in some unspecified time in the future. I ponder if the editors are considering simply how a lot they’ll print with out working afoul of the coverage itself. Right here is the letter. I urge my fellow alums to hitch within the protest, and specifically fellow legislation college graduates for whom free speech in all its ramifications must have explicit resonance.
To the editor:
As a graduate of Harvard Legislation College, the place I realized concerning the First Modification, I’m shocked and saddened by Harvard’s current announcement that it’s adopting the Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which confuses criticism of Israel or Zionism with antisemitic speech. Harvard even explicitly states that it’s adopting a number of the excessive examples of “antisemitism” given by the IHRA, akin to making use of a “double customary“ to the actions of Israel or questioning the validity of the fundamental Zionist enterprise.
It’s laborious to think about extra apparent examples of important dialogue about human rights on this planet right this moment than Israel’s destruction of most habitations in Gaza, its killing of tens of 1000’s of Palestinians and discount of the surviving inhabitants to near-famine, and its coverage of forcibly eradicating Palestinians from their land and houses within the West Financial institution in an effort to make room for extra Israeli settlers. But any such discussions at Harvard now, in the event that they happen in any respect, can be markedly one-sided, and fraught with fears of punishment. At Harvard, one would even be in danger in citing the choices of the Worldwide Court docket of Justice, which final yr discovered it “believable” that Israel’s conduct of the warfare in Gaza amounted to genocide.
A part of Harvard’s motivation was evidently settling a lawsuit; one other issue was most likely the political beating that former president Claudine Homosexual took earlier than a witchhunting Home of Representatives committee final fall; and I worry {that a} third issue was President Trump’s menace to deprive elite universities of Title VI funding in the event that they don’t, underneath the guise of combating antisemitism, actually suppress criticism of Israel or Zionism.
It’s a tragic day for educational freedom, and for Harvard to collapse to those political pressures is very disheartening.
Marjorie Heins, HLS class of 1978
Creator of “Clergymen of Our Democracy: the Supreme Court docket, Educational Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge“ (NYU Press, 2013)
Marjorie Heins is the previous director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Arts Censorship Venture.
