Civil disobedience on campus

Veritas and consequences: Both Harvard and its president are under fire
Opinion
12/15/23

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Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University, testified along with two other university presidents before the House Education and Workforce Committee on Dec. 5 in Washington.
Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University, testified along with two other university presidents before the House Education and Workforce Committee on Dec. 5 in Washington.
© Kevin Dietsch
University made right call in standing behind Claudine Gay

The Harvard Corporation governing board made the right call in resisting political pressure to oust president Claudine Gay (“Harvard board, ex-leaders back embattled Gay,” Page A1, Dec. 13). Academic freedom is a right and obligation dearly won and crucial to protect. It is distinct from, albeit related to, freedom of expression, since it also carries the responsibilities of academic integrity and creating and maintaining a robust context enabling all to be able to learn and think critically, including confronting challenging ideas, with physical safety protected. Gay has made clear her commitments to creating such a campus context.


Civil disobedience on campus — or anywhere else — by definition can entail consequences, and that is for those engaged in civil disobedience to parse.
While of course respecting the fundamental principles of human rights in all their dimensions (civil, social, political, economic, and cultural), no academic institution should be told by politicians and billionaires or other donors what its faculty should or should not teach and what its members should or should not think.

Nancy Krieger

Boston

The writer is a professor of social epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The views expressed here are her own.

In its decision, school signals a lack of concern for Jewish students’ well-being

Re “Harvard board, ex-leaders back embattled Gay”: On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, massacred about 1,200 people, raped women and girls, slaughtered hundreds of young people at a music festival, and kidnapped about 240 people, including toddlers and an infant. In response to this barbarity and to an antisemitic letter signed by more than 30 Harvard student groups perversely blaming the victim (Israel), Harvard president Claudine Gay said … nothing of substance.

Related video: Academic allegedly plagiarized by Harvard president says she must resign (FOX News)
Claudine Gay needs to step down.
FOX News
Academic allegedly plagiarized by Harvard president says she must resign
Subsequently, while testifying before Congress, Gay was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the school’s code of conduct. She coolly said it depended on the context. This amid an unprecedented deluge of antisemitism on US college campuses, including an anonymous post on a Cornell University online forum urging that Jewish students’ throats be “slit” because “rats need to be eliminated from cornell [sic]”; Jewish students being forced to shelter inside Cooper Union’s library while pro-Palestinian demonstrators pounded on the doors outside; and Jewish students reportedly being physically assaulted at Columbia and Tulane universities.

By reaffirming support for Gay, Harvard signaled its lack of concern for the mental and physical well-being of Jewish students in an atmosphere of intolerance.

Stephen A. Silver

San Francisco

Governing board should resign for letting Gay dangle in uncertainty

I am delighted that the Harvard Corporation governing board finally stood by president Claudine Gay. However, as someone connected to Harvard for more than 60 years, first as a student and then a faculty member, I am deeply embarrassed that the university’s board did not make this decision immediately and unequivocally, as the board of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did in the case of MIT president Sally Kornbluth. Instead, its members left Gay dangling in uncertainty and exposed to public accusation for a week.

In recent years, the Harvard board has accepted gifts of many millions of dollars for the university from several billionaires. One of these donors threatened to withhold future gifts if Gay was not forced to resign, raising suspicions in the minds of many that the board’s silence had more to do with deciding whether ensuring continued large donations was a higher priority than upholding the integrity and independence of the university.

The board’s silence also reinforced the widespread belief that the orchestrated right-wing congressional ambush was appropriate and that the three college presidents had flunked the test. (Liz Magill stepped down at UPenn within days of the Capitol Hill hearing.)

By these actions, the Harvard Corporation board, self-selected and answerable to no one but themselves, failed the university and convinced countless faculty, students, and alumni that it is they, rather than Gay, who should have resigned.

Dr. Eric Chivian

Boston

The author, a physician, is a former assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a cofounder of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which received the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

She keeps her title, but she fails as a leader

The Harvard board’s decision not to ask Claudine Gay to step down is a mistake that will have long-term consequences. She may hold the title of president, but I don’t think she will ever be a campus leader. Harvard will never be the same.

Jeffrey Ross

Chestnut Hill

With plagiarism hunt, wolves on the right are coming for Gay

So now those on the right who object to Harvard president Claudine Gay’s nuanced defense of campus free speech policies are coincidentally disparaging her long-ago academic research publications and accusing her of plagiarism (“Review sees no plagiarism but academics raise issues,” Page A1, Dec. 13). Is the implication that Black people who achieve prominence in academia have somehow been elevated undeservingly into their positions of influence and authority? Why are conservative activists spending their precious time scrutinizing Gay’s academic writing phrase by phrase and bringing forth these reputation-tarnishing allegations now? This seems clearly political and racist. Are these same conservative attack dogs pursuing prominent white conservative academics with the same diligence? I doubt it.

The wolves are after Gay, and they are vicious. I hope she stands her ground.

Jonathan Klate

Amherst

Beware letting the far right frame the debate over the Israel-Hamas war

Supporters of Israel in the current crisis should not be too quick to celebrate the recent congressional hearings held with college presidents. Like the hens that welcome in the fox to guard the chicken coop, they may be welcoming in so-called allies who are using this issue to continue their assault on universities and liberal ideologies.

The conservative right are influenced, in part, by fundamentalist and evangelical supporters who see the state of Israel as a foreordained step toward the biblical end times and the beginnings of a new Christian world.

Allowing the far right to frame the Israel-Hamas war as a problem of “antisemitism” at colleges and universities distracts us from the hard work of discussing and gaining insight into these difficult issues. If the right succeeds in hobbling the work of our universities, who will be there when we look for understanding and knowledge?

Anne Meyerson

Quincy