This is an amazing piece by Harvard Anthropology Prof Lorand Matory. Published in the Crimson because no one else will publish it, it says everything I say: the Jewish presence in the establishment has had the effect of stifling debate over Israel and denying status to those who speak of Palestinian suffering. Consider this eloquent first sentence:
At what point do imbalances in access to money, media, and society’s
administrative apparatuses constitute the censorship of dissent?
Matory then goes on to name several instances of censorship at Harvard.
on no other issue at Harvard have I ever heard of the disinvitation of
even one invited speaker, much less three.
In 2002, Harvard’s
Department of English invited Tom Paulin—Oxford professor and one of
the finest living British poets—to speak, but promptly disinvited him
after then-University President Lawrence H. Summers expressed
disapproval of Paulin’s criticisms of Israel. Though the Department
later voted to reverse the disinvitation, Paulin has never come to
campus. In 2005, DePaul historian Norman G. Finkelstein, who has both
sharply criticized Israeli military conduct and accused Harvard Law
School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz of plagiarism, had been invited to
speak at Harvard Book Store but was abruptly disinvited without
explanation. While Finkelstein cannot prove that Dershowitz was
responsible for the disinvitation, the Dershowitz modus operandi is
evident in the hundreds of pages of threatening legal correspondence
which document Dershowitz’s campaign to stop publication of
Finkelstein’s book at University of California Press (UCP) …
Some have opined that, with the passing of the Summers
administration in 2006, these threats to free speech about Israel have
ended. However, in 2007, long after Summers’ departure, Martin A.
Nowak—Professor of Mathematics and Biology and Director of Harvard’s
Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED) —invited Rutgers biologist
Robert L. Trivers to speak on the occasion of his receipt of the
prestigious Crafoord Prize in biosciences from the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences. Hours before the scheduled speech and party,
according to Trivers, Nowak abruptly rescinded the invitation and said
that he was doing so under the orders of someone he would not identify.
Also according to Trivers, Jeffrey Epstein later admitted ordering the
cancellation and said that he had done so under pressure from
Dershowitz. Epstein, a legal client of Dershowitz, had donated the
funds used to establish PED, which, according to other sources, depends
for its future effectiveness on further funding from him.
Dershowitz, who is also a Faculty Affiliate of PED, had
complained of a letter to the Wall Street Journal in which Trivers
described Israel’s attacks on Lebanese civilians during the 2006
invasion as “butchery.”
I like Harvard professors. Precise, specific. Then this ominous paragraph:
Finally, my colleagues and I hold the strong suspicion that a recent
tenure case was terminated because of the candidate’s non-academic
writings about the Israel-Palestine issue. Faculty rules forbid me to
disclose any further details. Despite the brevity with which this case
must be treated, the potential for political bias in tenure decisions
is the most serious and frightening of threats to free speech and to
Harvard’s reputation for excellence. Every one of the dozen junior
faculty members who have privately expressed support for my motion have
also expressed fear of doing so publicly.
Will someone tell me who Matory is talking about? And as for Matory’s anger that he has been marginalized and his status threatened by his exclusion from mainstream publications–dude, I hear you. But think about it this way. We are the modern refusees, those artists in France who derived such self-awareness and shadow-status from being rejected. We are learning the issues, we are getting tough, not bitter. We are not going away, we are getting smarter, we are growing a community. That community spans realists, leftist progressives, universalists, alotta Jews, State Department guys, ordinary Americans. Note Victor Kovner’s appeal to the Jewish establishment to open its eyes and First Amendment to us. Note Carla Cohen’s collapse on censorship at a “beloved” DC bookstore. We have cut the barbed wire. Before you know it, we will come into the mainstream.
