Bestowing An Undue Honor

The English department’s decision to re-extend an invitation to Oxford poet and Columbia visiting lecturer Tom Paulin sets a disturbing precendent of allowing speakers who promulgate hate speech and religiously based violence to address this campus under the Harvard imprimatur.

Paulin’s statements in Al-Aram newspaper make it perfectly clear that his vision of a solution to the Middle East conflict is one in which “Nazi, racist” Brooklyn-born settlers are “shot dead.” Despite Paulin’s claims that his views in Al-Aram were not fully reflective of his stance, he has not retracted his remarks. By inviting Paulin to speak, the English department has implicitly legitimized him as one worthy of recognition by the College and its students, poetry and politics alike. Regardless of his contributions to the field of poetry, we would hope that the department would be more judicious in its invitations and withold them from figures who advocate violence.

The department cites free speech as their primary reason for re-inviting Paulin. While we strongly support the right to free speech, we do not believe it applies in this instance. The recent headline of the BBC claiming that Paulin had been ‘banned from Harvard’ is incorrect: he was not banned from the campus in any way. The English department chose merely to rescind an offer of official University recognition. Nothing prevents Paulin from airing his views in whatever venues he can find. This campus has seen many inflammatory and bombastic speakers throughout the years, but they have come to our community at the behest of student groups. Ann Coulter, who at one time advocated the slaughter of Afghani leaders and an installation of a “Christian” govemment, has been able to air her views, but her invitation came from the Harvard Republican Club, not an academic department.

Official Harvard invitations should be reserved for those who can be revered by the University community—or at least those who would not violate the campus’ regulations against racial or ethnic bias. The decision to reinvite Paulin as a distinguished lecturers belies a confusion of what standards the Harvard community should uphold.

Dissent: A Principled Reconsideration

The English department’s decision to re-extend its initial invitation to controversial poet Tom Paulin is a positive step toward maintaining a free and open exchange of ideas at Harvard. The invitation’s prior rescinding, under administrative and student pressure, only contributed to a climate of institutional hostility to a particular side in this political debate over Israel—a thoroughly destructive force to the health of an academic community.

Furthermore, it seems Paulin’s views were remarkably misconstrued, yet the Staff refuses to accept it was overly quick to judge him. In April, Paulin apologized for his inflammatory comments, insisted they were taken out of context and reaffirmed that he has consistently fought racism in all forms in all places. But his political views on Israel, perhaps offensive to many, were never a fair justification for uninviting Paulin in the first place. His lecture concerns an entirely unrelated body of work as a poet. The Staff’s assertion that this particular lecture amounts to an intellectual honor, which Paulin does not deserve in light of his views, ignores that the College “honors” anti-Semitic poets regularly in the classroom, including poets Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. Indeed it is more than possible to honor figures for their poetic achievements without lending institutional support for their personal views.

We are pleased the department decided to reexamine this issue amongst its entire faculty because there was clearly widespread disagreement. We hope next time the Staff embraces controversial speakers of this nature—who have much to add to both the academic and political discourse—instead of obstinately plugging its ears.

—George B. Bradt ’05, Jasmine J.Mahmoud ’04,

Nicholas F.M. Josefowitz ’05, Luke Smith ’04,

Stephen W. Stromberg ’05, and Benjamin J.Toff ’05