A Palestine Exception to Harvard’s Academic Mission

What do Birzeit University, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and Harvard Divinity School have in common?

They all contribute to Harvard’s academic study of Palestine and — in just the span of a few weeks — University leadership has seemingly turned on them.

Last month, HDS suspended its Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative — which uses Israel and Palestine as its primary case study — amid budget cuts at the school and public criticism of the initiative for allegedly lacking ideological diversity. Then last week, over 20 HDS alumni decried the RCPI’s suspension in a letter to University leaders, deeming it an affront to free speech.

By suspending the RCPI via another conveniently-timed review, Harvard seems — yet again — to be clamping down on academic discourse about Palestine for the sake of appeasing an insatiable Trump administration.

The suspension follows a series of accusations that the RCPI overemphasized Palestinian perspectives. At worst, these criticisms — from those describing programs like the RCPI as akin to “Hamas or Palestinian embassies” — were unproductive, contributing to an environment in which any academic discussion of Palestine is rife with divisiveness and dehumanization.

And even if Harvard does have genuine concerns about the ideological diversity of its academic initiatives, the solution isn’t to close off spaces for scholarly discussion — it’s to expand them.

Leading academic institutions aren’t above the most pressing issues of the day. Whether studying Israel-Palestine or any other public controversy, Harvard’s academic work can’t exist outside of politics. As such, the University’s response to allegations of political bias shouldn’t be to bury its head in the sand by shutting down inquiry. Rather, it should increase the number of expert perspectives involved.

Unfortunately, Harvard seems to have taken the opposite approach, applying a Palestine exception to its academic mission.

We can’t be sure whether HDS’ financial situation or a review committee’s good-faith deliberations were probative in decisionmaking about the future of the RCPI. But against the backdrop of the University’s suspended ties with Birzeit University in the West Bank, dismissals of CMES leaders, and the probation of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, it’s difficult not to raise an eyebrow — especially when a federal funding review casts a nearly $9 billion shadow over every decision University leaders make.

The bitter irony is that programs such as the RCPI discussing Israel and Palestine are more necessary now than ever — especially given the widespread destruction of Palestinian scholarship. The ongoing threat to programs like this one hampers Harvard’s academic mission. Rather than inhibit academic discourse, the University should actively uplift spaces for discussion around this conflict.

Harvard must change course on its pattern of restricting Palestine-related programming. The University cannot champion free discourse by stamping it out.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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