Faculty Debates Summers’ Remarks

The most contentious debate at yesterday’s Faculty Meeting—the first of the academic year—did not center around an item that was on the agenda.

Instead, a meeting that was expected to be dominated by administrative logistics like handing out honorary degrees, announcing new appointments and opening up the planning session for this year’s curricular review was transformed into a weighty discussion on academic freedom and anti-Semitism.

During “Question Period,” the part of each Faculty meeting during which professors can direct questions to either the University president or the dean of the Faculty, Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn rose to express his concerns about President Lawrence H. Summers’ comments at Morning Prayers last month.

During those remarks, Summers cited calls for the University to divest from Israel as an example of recent developments on campus that are “anti-Semitic in their effect if not in their intent.”

Mendelsohn said he felt Summers’ remarks had threatened the University’s environment of free and open discussion.

“It seemed to me you might be leaving too much room for people to interpret it to mean that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic,” Mendelsohn said. He encouraged Summers to use the Faculty meeting—the only official forum for professors to discuss issues of this degree of significance—as an opportunity to “clarify” his views.

Summers, who received a copy of Mendelsohn’s remarks on Monday, thanked him for his remarks and echoed Mendelsohn’s commitment to academic freedom.

“I entirely share your view that...it is integral to a University community that the ability to have a debate on any intellectual question or any political question be protected,” Summers said. “My hopes would be, as a University, that we could be a place where a wide range of perspectives could be discussed freely.”

Summers said he had only intended to urge professors not to “seek to instrumentalize the University” for one particular perspective.

But Summers stood behind his remarks at Morning Prayers, saying that though he did not intend to accuse any member of the Harvard community of anti-Semitism, he did want to call attention to what he perceived to be a serious trend toward anti-Semitism.

Mendelsohn said he was prompted to speak at yesterday’s meeting by what he had perceived to be a degeneration in the openness of the discussion and debate on the Middle East.

“As more people talked to me, I had the sense that a polarization was occurring, and people were developing a fear of what would happen if they spoke out,” he said.

Mendelsohn’s comments brought three other professors to the floor to air their views.

Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Diana L. Eck echoed Mendelsohn’s concerns about freedom of speech at the University, noting that, as co-master of Lowell House, she had seen students grow wary of freely discussing the Middle East for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic.

Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature Ruth R. Wisse, on the other hand, lauded Summers for using his free speech to counter was she deemed harmful speech—namely, last year’s divestment petition.

“Free speech allows everyone to express their ideas, but if those ideas are pernicious, it puts tremendous stress on the rest of us to resist these ideas—otherwise, they spread,” Wisse said after the meeting.

But Professor of the Faculty of Divinity and in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Paul D. Hanson, who—as co-master of Winthrop House—became the focus of harsh criticism for signing last year’s petition, said he had experienced first-hand how quickly the door to free and open debate can be closed.

After signing the petition last year, Hanson was labeled anti-Semitic by Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz. Dershowitz repeatedly and publicly invited Hanson to debate him regarding the petition. Though Hanson refused, the very public attachment of the term “anti-Semitism” to criticism of Israel’s policies dampened further discussion, Hanson said.

Following yesterday’s meeting, Hanson said he felt the discussion was an example of how a community can engage in a reasonable yet meaningful discussion about controversial subjects.

“I felt in general that the conversation—including all the speakers—was an example of the type of conversation that we need,” Hanson said. “There were clarifications—not as complete as I would like to see it, but nevertheless a clearing of the air and a very unambiguous commitment on the part of all of us to the type of constructive conversation that can be an example for students.”

Hanson said the need for an open and tolerant environment for discussion will become more pressing in the coming months as the war against Iraq becomes more of a reality—and as resistance to that reality hardens.

“We’re entering some very dark hours this coming winter, and I think it’s time for us to be clearheaded—to transcend pettiness and to get on with the substantive discussion,” he said.

Back to the Agenda

After roughly 15 minutes of discussion on Mendelsohn’s question, the meeting moved on to items originally slated on the docket.

Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, presiding over his first Faculty Meeting as dean, heralded the beginning of the review of the undergraduate curriculum—a topic that will dominate Faculty discussion for at least the next two years.

Kirby wrote to all members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences last week to notify them of the curricular review and to solicit their input about the best way to go about undertaking the review process.

New Dean of Undergraduate Education Benedict H. Gross ’71 said the Faculty should approach the review as an opportunity to vigorously scrutinize every aspect of the current curriculum.

“The Harvard curriculum was never completely designed—much of it developed through the principles of evolutionary dynamics,” Gross said.

Gross told the Faculty there will be a series of symposia in November during which professors from Harvard and its peer institutions will discuss the history and theories behind the Core curriculum and explore the different types of curricula that exist at other schools.

In the closing minutes of the meeting, Professor of Sociology Christopher Winship, chair of the standing committee on public service, introduced a discussion on public service at the College. The committee plans to devote this year to exploring how to best connect students’ academic and public service experiences.

One suggestion they will explore includes using public service as the equivalent of lab experience for the Social Sciences.

The committee also plans to examine the effect Harvard’s public service programs have on the communities they seek to help and to see if there is a better or more standardized way to evaluate these programs.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.