September 19, 2025
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Harvard President called out for favouring Zionist narrative

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One hundred and twenty members of Harvard faculty sharply criticised President Claudine Gray for a statement she issued last week condemning the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free” on the grounds it implied “removalism [sic] and even eliminationism [sic]”, suggesting that those who criticised Israel and/or expressed sympathy for Palestinians had behaved unacceptably, and announcing the formation of an antisemitism advisory group to implement antisemitism training for affiliates. As the faculty critics pointed out, the President, under pressure from wealthy benefactors and other pro-Israel interests, appeared ready to make a “Palestine exception” to her commitment to intellectual freedom and open dialogue, and among other things they called on her to create an advisory group on “Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism.”

The original of the Faculty letter printed below can be found here.

Harvard Faculty Statement In Support of Academic Freedom

Harvard faculty members criticized University President Claudine Gay's Thursday statement condemning the phrase "from the river to the sea."

Harvard Faculty Statement In Support of Academic Freedom

Dear President Gay:

As Harvard faculty, we have been astonished by the pressure from donors, alumni, and even some on this campus to silence faculty, students, and staff critical of the actions of the State of Israel. It is important to acknowledge the patronizing tone and format of much of the criticism you have received as well as the outright racism contained in some of it.

We were nevertheless profoundly dismayed by your November 9 message entitled “Combating Antisemitism.” The University’s commitment to intellectual freedom and open dialogue seems to be giving way to something else entirely: a model of education in which the meaning of terms once eligible for interpretation is prescribed from above by a committee whose work was, on Tuesday, described to the faculty as only beginning.

There should surely be limits to what is speakable, even in a university. Saying things that are plainly untrue – denying the Holocaust, for example – merits condemnation. Derogating other members of the community in racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic language merits condemnation.

There must, however, be room on a university campus for debate about the actions of states, including of the State of Israel. It cannot be ruled as ipso facto antisemitic to question the actions of this particular ethno-nationalist government any more than it would be ipso facto racist to question the actions of Robert Mugabe’s ethno-nationalist government in Zimbabwe. Nor can arguments that characterize Israel as an “apartheid” state or its recent actions as “ethnic cleansing” or even “genocide” be considered automatically antisemitic, regardless of whether one concurs with such arguments. The University’s recently-announced “Discrimination and Bullying Policies and Procedures,” it is useful to remember, includes “political belief” (and thus presumably its expression) as a protected category.

It is understandable that in the shadow of the twentieth-century history of Europe, Palestine, and Israel, as well as the attacks of October 7 and the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza, you would want to remind members of our community that their words have meaning. And yet, at a moment when an affiliate of the University has with apparent impunity stood in the yard and accused students of supporting terrorism, your delineation of the limits of acceptable expression on our campus is dangerously one-sided.

Similarly, the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free” has a long and complicated history. Its interpretation deserves, and is receiving, sustained and ongoing inquiry and debate. Singling it out as necessarily implying removalism or even eliminationism – when over a million Palestinians have been forced from their homes and over ten thousand civilians, including four thousand children, have been slain in Gaza, actions which the Holocaust historian Omer Bartov suggests in the New York Times may amount to a “crime against humanity” being executed with “genocidal intent” – is imprudent as a matter of university policy and badly misjudged as an act of moral leadership.

We call on you to present a balanced commitment to the support of intellectual freedom at Harvard by taking the following steps:

  1. Resisting calls to suspend and/or decertify the Palestine Solidarity Committee in retaliation for its public statements and advocacy, and resisting calls to set aside the University’s normal disciplinary procedures to prematurely sanction students and employees because of concerns raised about their political activity absent specific allegations of wrongdoing (and those already thusly sanctioned must be reinstated pending a procedurally sound investigation);
  2. Directing the President’s Advisory Group on Antisemitism to explain its definition of antisemitism to the University community, as requested at the FAS faculty meeting of November 7, before recommending any policies touching upon the freedom of thought and expression on our campus;
  3. Explicitly and specifically affirming the University’s commitment to the freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression in light of the extraordinary pressure being brought to bear upon critics of the State of Israel and advocates of the Palestinian people, and indicating that there can be no tolerance for a “Palestine exception” to free speech;
  4. Creating an advisory group on Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism (as suggested at the FAS faculty meeting of November 7).

Sincerely,

  1. Walter Johnson, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  2. Kirsten Weld, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  3. Vijay Iyer, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  4. Deidre Lynch, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  5. Nikolas Bowie, Harvard Law School
  6. Diane Moore, Harvard Divinity School
  7. Namwali Serpell, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  8. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Harvard Kennedy School
  9. Sidney Chalhoub, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  10. Christopher Hasty, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  11. Salma Abu Ayyash, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  12. Jesse B. Bump, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
  13. Ryan D. Doerfler, Harvard Law School
  14. Atalia Omer, Harvard Divinity School
  15. Bram Wispelwey, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School
  16. Sara Roy, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  17. Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  18. Neel Mukherjee, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  19. Margareta Matache, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
  20. Soham Patel, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  21. John Womack, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  22. Musa Syeed, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  23. Jacinda Tran, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  24. Vincent Brown, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  25. Adhy Kim, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  26. Richard Thomas, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  27. Lara Jirmanus, Harvard Medical School
  28. Altaf Saadi, Harvard Medical School
  29. Hibah Osman, Harvard Medical School
  30. Lisa Thompson, Harvard School of Dental Medicine
  31. Khameer Kidia, Harvard Medical School
  32. Mary T Bassett, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
  33. Sawsan Abdulrahim, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
  34. Cemal Kafadar, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  35. Lauren Kaminsky, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  36. Amy Hollywood, Harvard Divinity School
  37. Malak Rafla, Harvard Medical School
  38. Bassima Abdallah, Harvard Medical School
  39. Alejandra Caraballo, Harvard Law School
  40. Eleanor Craig, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  41. Matylda Figlerowicz, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  42. Adam Haber, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
  43. Tara K. Menon, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  44. Arunabh Ghosh, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  45. Joel Suarez, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  46. Karameh Kuemmerle, Harvard Medical School
  47. Sam Marks, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  48. Rosie Bsheer, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  49. Nader Uthman, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  50. Glenda Carpio, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  51. Adaner Usmani, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  52. Paulina Alberto, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  53. Sarah Darghouth, Harvard Medical School
  54. Alisa Khan, Harvard Medical School
  55. Patricia Stoeck, Harvard Medical School
  56. Hajirah Saeex, Harvard Medical School
  57. Sherar Andalcio, Harvard Medical School
  58. Diana L. Eck, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  59. Gordon Schiff, Harvard Medical School
  60. Mahmoud Abu Hazeem, Harvard Medical School
  61. Rania El Fekih, Harvard Medical School
  62. Hicham Skali, Harvard Medical School
  63. Ramona Dvorak, Harvard Medical School
  64. Kamal Itani, Harvard Medical School
  65. Haytham Kaafarani, Harvard Medical School
  66. Ousmane Kane, Harvard Divinity School
  67. David U. Himmelstein, Harvard Medical School
  68. Joycelyn Ronda, Harvard Medical School
  69. Christian Williams, Harvard Law School
  70. Steffie Woodhandler, Harvard Medical School
  71. Ju Yon Kim, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  72. M. Amin Arnaout, Harvard Medical School
  73. Autumn Allen, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  74. Avik Chatterjee, Harvard Medical School
  75. Farhana Sharmeen, Harvard Medical School
  76. Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School
  77. Aisha James, Harvard Medical School
  78. Corey Hardin, Harvard Medical School
  79. Caroline Light, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  80. Karen Huang, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  81. George Aumoithe, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  82. Michelle Morse, Harvard Medical School
  83. Sadeq Rahimi, Harvard Medical School
  84. Sugata Bose, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  85. Lorenzo Bondioli, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  86. Michael Bronski, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  87. David Kennedy, Harvard Law School
  88. Christina Villarreal, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  89. Hilary Rantisi, Harvard Divinity School
  90. Kassem Safa, Harvard Medical School
  91. Huma Farid, Harvard Medical School
  92. Bernhard Nickel, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  93. Amanda Raffoul, Harvard Medical School
  94. Martha Ann Selby, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  95. Marshall Ganz, Harvard Kennedy School
  96. Amir Mohareb, Harvard Medical School
  97. Eman Ansari, Harvard Medical School
  98. Mohamed Jarraya, Harvard Medical School
  99. Liz McKenna, Harvard Kennedy School
  100. Maggie Doherty, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  101. Hussein Rashid, Harvard Divinity School
  102. Juliana Morris, Harvard Medical School
  103. Sandra Smith, Harvard Kennedy School
  104. Kaia Stern, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  105. Nicholas Bloom, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  106. Theodore Weatherwax, Harvard Medical School
  107. Rita Hamad, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
  108. Emmet von Stackelberg, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  109. Areej Hassan, Harvard Medical School
  110. David Showalter, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  111. Amina Elbendary, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  112. Pedja Stojicic, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
  113. Ryan Enos, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  114. Raif S. Geha, Harvard Medical School
  115. Chance Bonar, Harvard Divinity School
  116. Nikhil Mathews, Harvard Medical School
  117. Hesham Hamoda, Harvard Medical School
  118. Talal Chatila, Harvard Medical School
  119. Jennifer Leaning, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
  120. Gretchen Brion-Meisels, Harvard Graduate School of Education

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