No Hate Speech at Harvard

Harvard is an open academic community dedicated to the vigorous exchange of ideas. The freedom of speech is absolutely central to the University’s mission. But Harvard has no obligation to encourage hate speech, speech that explicitly incites ethnic violence. Such speakers have no place in a community based on respect and tolerance, and for that reason, the English department was right to ask Irish poet Tom Paulin not to give the Morris Gray Lecture.

When the department invited Paulin to give the annual speech last winter, he had not yet told Egypt’s Al-Ahram Weekly newspaper that Brooklyn-born Jews who have settled in the West Bank “should be shot dead.” “I think they are Nazis, racists,” he said, “I feel nothing but hatred for them.”

If such an obvious call for killing was not cause enough to cancel Paulin’s lecture, he also published a poem in London’s Observer newspaper calling the Israeli military “the Zionist SS.” To say such a comparison is offensive does not do it justice; ghastly, repulsive and sickening are more appropriate descriptions of the moral bankruptcy of anyone who equates the Israeli Defense Force to an organization that killed six million Jews.

These two comments are hate speech, pure and simple.

Paulin is certainly entitled to express his own opinions—and of course, extremely critical views of Israel should not preclude him from speaking at Harvard, on that subject or any other. Whether or not he believes in the right of a Jewish state to exist is irrelevant to a discussion of epic poetry, the original subject of his lecture. But when the English department learned that he advocated killing civilians and considered the Israeli military a modern-day incarnation of the SS, the content of his poetry became immaterial.

It would have been highly inappropriate for Harvard to honor Paulin by allowing him to deliver the Morris Gray Lecture, which has been previously given by such Nobel Prize-winning luminaries as Seamus Heaney and Anthony Hecht. To let Paulin give a distinguished lecture at this University after expressing such an offensive and violent message would inevitably legitimize his hateful rhetoric.

The more than 100 students, faculty and alumni who complained about the English department’s choice were right—as was University President Lawrence H. Summers, who expressed his concerns about Paulin directly to members of the English department, according to the Boston Globe. A poet more than anyone should recognize the power of words. If Paulin is going to advocate killing civilians, whether Brooklyn-born Jewish settlers or ardent Palestinian nationalists, he should find no welcome at this University.

The freedom of speech is a crucial value to be continually defended, but it does not require Harvard to host a poet who preaches hate. It is unfortunate that the banner of free speech has been raised in Paulin’s defense; that standard is being sullied by his name.

Dissent: The Thought-Police Strike Again

The censorship of Tom Paulin is an outrage. Paulin is internationally recognized as a leading poet and scholar, and silencing him undermines the spirit of free debate on which Harvard University is based. The English department should not have allowed itself to be bullied by special interests or President Summers, and students should revel in the debate sparked by controversial figures coming to speak on campus.

Once again the Staff erroneously conflates anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Although Paulin’s comments and poetry may seem rather direct (and even offensive), they must be put into the context of his long history of combatting bigotry and intolerance. He has, for example, repeatedly spoken out against the literary establishment’s tolerance of T. S. Eliot’s anti-Semitism.

Paulin should have come here to speak. We disagree strongly with his views, yet the best way to combat them is through constructive and mature debate. Alas, as the Staff opinion shows, the current climate on campus does not lend itself to the measured and thoughtful discussion which Paulin and his poetry both deserve and require.

—Anthony S.A. Freinberg ’04, Nicholas F.M. Josefowitz ’05, Julia G. Kiechel ’04, Emma S. MacKinnon ’05, Jasmine J. Mahmoud ’04 and Luke Smith ’05