The Harvard Social Studies Committee is meeting tomorrow to make a final decision on whether to move forward with their event planned to honor Marty Peretz. A source at Harvard tells me, “there is a LOT of internal dissent on this.” One sign of that dissent is this open letter that is ciruclating from “concerned members of the Social Studies Community and others at Harvard.” The letter reads:
Dear organizers of the Social Studies 50th anniversary commemoration:
As members of the Social Studies community, we strongly oppose the decision to feature Martin Peretz as a speaker at the 50th anniversary of Social Studies, as well as the reported creation of a fund for undergraduate research in his name.
As you know, Peretz has publicly aligned himself with the xenophobic campaign against the proposed Islamic cultural center in Manhattan, lauding it as “the closest thing we’ve had to a genuinely grass roots effort against the casual and elitist First Amendment fundamentalists.” He insists as “a statement of fact, not value” that “Muslim life is cheap, especially for Muslims.”
These remarks cannot be dismissed as an aberration. Peretz has a long and sordid public record of racist statements directed against various groups. He has described “Arab society” as “hidebound and backward” and claimed (in an article later removed from The New Republic website) that “We have higher standards of civilization than [Arabs] do.” He has opined that “Latin societ[ies]” enjoy “characteristic deficiencies” such as “congenital corruption” and “near-tropical work habits.” Peretz has declared that “So many in the black population are afflicted by cultural deficiencies” and that “in the ghetto a lot of mothers don’t appreciate the importance of schooling.”1 Peretz’ belated attempt to “apologize” for a portion of a recent blog posting about Muslims – prompted only by condemnation in The New York Times – does not erase this legacy of bigotry.
We are aware that on this occasion some may prefer to ignore Peretz’ vitriol and instead focus purely on his role in the Social Studies program. We also understand the appeal of accepting donations that would support student research. There are, however, larger concerns at stake that call for a principled stand at this moment. Social Studies describes itself as a community of independent thinkers “who share not only a fascination with social science research and theory but also concerns about pressing social, political, and economic problems facing contemporary societies.” Today in the United States there is an unmistakable and alarming resurgence of the open expression of racist and xenophobic attitudes, in this case directed against Muslims. We cannot ignore the historical moment in which we live. And we can be sure that history will not ignore a decision to publicly honor Martin Peretz.
You can read and sign the open letter here.
Update: The Harvard Crimson has picked up the story on the open letter:
The petition also opposes the creation of a $500,000 undergraduate research fund created by Peretz’s friends and family that would sponsor thesis research and other student projects.
Within 10 hours of its online posting, the open letter already collected 93 names, as signotories lashed out against plans to honor Peretz at the committee’s 50th anniversary celebration.
Leaders in the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies plan to address the controversy at a meeting tomorrow, according to petitioners, who said they hope to convince the committee to rethink its decision at the gathering.
Simon L. Sternin ’01, one of the alumni leaders of the petition, said that the movement was in response to inaction from members in Social Studies.
“There have been a number of people who have tried to contact Social Studies in the past month or so, and we haven’t really gotten that much progress from that approach,” said Sternin, a former Social Studies concentrator. “We thought it might be more legimate to have a larger number of people in this opposition.”
The list of signatories includes many alumni and current students in the committee who are experiencing “the frustration that Social Studies is doing them all a disservice by their association,” Sternin said.
