Antisemitism: The Power of Myth - Academic Freedom
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In the television series The Ascent of Man,
Jacob Bronowski, a scientist and humanist, describes universities as
places where individuals come together not "to worship what is known
but to question it." That spirit is central to academic freedom. For
hundreds of years, scholars and students have struggled to obtain and
then carefully protect the right to exchange ideas freely in the
classroom, explore and disseminate new knowledge, and speak openly
about their views both in a professional capacity and as private
citizens.
The importance that universities place on academic freedom was evident
throughout 2002 as disagreements over the growing conflict between
Palestinians and Israelis became more and more heated. In response to
the tensions at his own university, Harvard President Lawrence Summers
gave a speech on September 17 that was in many ways a defining moment
in the debate. He chose the setting for his speech carefully. He did
not speak at a faculty meeting or at a student convocation. Instead he
gave his address at a traditional event at Harvard. At the beginning of
each school year, the president of the university gives a talk at
Tuesday Morning Prayers in a small chapel on campus. Summers chose his
words with equal care:
I speak with you today not as President of the University but as a concerned member of our community about something that I never thought I would become seriously worried about-the issue of anti-Semitism.
I am Jewish, identified but hardly devout. In my lifetime, anti-Semitism has been remote from my experience. My family all left Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. The Holocaust is for me a matter of history, not personal memory. To be sure, there were country clubs where I grew up that had few if any Jewish members, but not ones that included people I knew. My experience in college and graduate school, as a faculty member, as a government official-all involved little notice of my religion.
Indeed, I was struck during my years in the Clinton administration that the existence of an economic leadership team with people like Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, Charlene Barshefsky and many others that was very heavily Jewish passed without comment or notice-it was something that would have been inconceivable a generation or two ago, as indeed it would have been inconceivable a generation or two ago that Harvard could have a Jewish president.
Without thinking about it much, I attributed all of this to progress- to an ascendancy of enlightenment and tolerance. A view that prejudice is increasingly put aside. A view that while the politics of the Middle East were enormously complex, and contentious, the question of the right of a Jewish state to exist had been settled in the affirmative by the world community.
But today, I am less complacent. Less complacent and comfortable because there is disturbing evidence of an upturn in anti-Semitism globally, and also because of some developments closer to home.
Consider some of the global events of the last year:
- There have been synagogue burnings, physical assaults on Jews, or the painting of swastikas on Jewish memorials in every country in Europe. Observers in many countries have pointed to the worst outbreak of attacks against the Jews since the Second World War.
- Candidates who denied the significance of the Holocaust reached the runoff stage of elections for the nation's highest office in France and Denmark. State-sponsored television stations in many nations of the world spew anti-Zionist propaganda.
- The United Nations-sponsored World Conference on Racism-while failing to mention human rights abuses in China, Rwanda, or anyplace in the Arab world- spoke of Israel's policies prior to recent struggles under the Barak government as constituting ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The NGO [non-governmental organization] declaration at the same conference was even more virulent.
I could go on. But I
want to bring this closer to home. Of course academic communities
should be and always will be places that allow any viewpoint to be
expressed. And certainly there is much to be debated about the Middle
East and much in Israel's foreign and defense policy that can be and
should be vigorously challenged.
But where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.
For example:
- Hundreds of European academics have called for an end to support for Israeli researchers, though not for an end to support for researchers from any other nation.
- Israeli scholars this past spring were forced off the board of an international literature journal.
- At the same rallies where protesters, many of them university students, condemn the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and global capitalism and raise questions about globalization, it is becoming increasingly common to also lash out at Israel. Indeed, at the anti-IMF rallies last spring, chants were heard equating Hitler and Sharon.
- Events to raise funds for organizations of questionable political provenance that in some cases were later found to support terrorism have been held by student organizations on this and other campuses with at least modest success and very little criticism.
- And some here at Harvard and some at universities across the country have called for the University to single out Israel among all nations as the lone country where it is inappropriate for any part of the University's endowment to be invested. I hasten to say the University has categorically rejected this suggestion.
We should always respect the academic freedom of everyone to take any position. We should also recall that academic freedom does not include freedom from criticism. The only antidote to dangerous ideas is strong alternatives vigorously advocated.
I have always, throughout my life, been put off by those who heard the sound of breaking glass, in every insult or slight, and conjured up images of Hitler's Kristallnacht at any disagreement with Israel. Such views have always seemed to me alarmist if not slightly hysterical. But I have to say that while they still seem to me unwarranted, they seem rather less alarmist in the world of today than they did a year ago.
I would like nothing more than to be wrong. It is my greatest hope and prayer that the idea of a rise of anti-Semitism proves to be a self-denying prophecy- a prediction that carries the seeds of its own falsification. But this depends on all of us.1
Summers' speech sparked both criticism and praise not only at Harvard and other universities but also in the larger community. Much of the controversy focused on his comments about a "divestiture petition" that a number of professors at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had signed in the spring of 2002. The petition called on the university to sell off stocks and other investments in companies that do business with Israel. In an article that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Thomas Bartlett tried to summarize responses to the talk:Mr. Summers caught almost everyone at Harvard by surprise with his speech. For Alan M. Dershowitz, a professor of law at Harvard and an outspoken defender of Israel, the surprise was a pleasant one. He congratulated Mr. Summers for "saying it like it is." And he issued a challenge in The Harvard Crimson to debate any of the professors who had signed the divestiture petition, which he called "a form of anti-Semitism." He added, "There is no other rational basis why a university would want to divest from Israel but not from Jordan or from China. ... Singling out the Jewish nation for this kind of de-legitimization is bigotry."
Ken Nakayama was among those caught off-guard by the speech, but for a very different reason. The professor of psychology at Harvard helped create the petition. "It is upsetting, because it is the president of the most important university in the United States, and one would hope he would have a more balanced view about the free exchange of ideas, rather than questioning the motives [of those who signed the petition] and linking them in a vague way with terrorists and anti-Semites," Mr. Nakayama says.
No faculty member has asked to have his or her name removed from the petition since the address, Mr. Nakayama says. In fact, he says, he has received e-mail messages from several professors asking whether they can add their signatures. The speech also has put a media spotlight on similar petitions, which are circulating at about 50 colleges. Over the past few months, the movement seemed to have lost its momentum.
In fact, a petition against divestiture was signed by 439 Harvard professors and 143 MIT professors, far more than those [who favored divestiture]. Mr. Summers had previously said there would be no divestiture of Israel-related stocks at Harvard- and no college appears to be moving in the direction of divestiture. ...
The Harvard president's speech has attracted nationwide attention. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal applauded him for speaking his mind with "clarity, precision, and force." Jewish organizations, like Hillel, a national student group, praised the comments as timely and accurate. "President Summers is saying, correctly, that hate speech is hate speech even when it is uttered on a college campus," Richard M. Joel, Hillel's president, said in written statement.
Other college leaders- several of them, like Mr. Summers, Jewish-commended Harvard's president for raising the issue of anti-Semitism. Among them is Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president of George Washington University, who says that while he hasn't seen evidence of increased anti-Semitism on his campus, it is important to remain alert to signs of bigotry. "The two heads-up occasions recently are San Francisco State and Concordia,: he says, referring to recent unrest on those campuses.
At San Francisco State University, some students yelled "Death to Jews!" and "Hitler should have finished the job," while at Montreal's Concordia University, a speech by Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister of Israel, was canceled after protesters smashed windows in the building where he was to speak. "Both of them give us reason to pay attention to what Summers has said, and to be proactive," says Mr. Trachtenberg.
But Mr. Trachtenberg warns against linking divestiture- which he is against- with anti-Semitism: "It is possible to be anti-Israel without being anti-Semitic. It is also possible to be pro-Israel and not be particularly pro-Jewish. Politics make strange bedfellows."
Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College of Columbia University, agrees with Mr. Summers that anti-Semitism appears to be on the rise. Recently, when visiting a state college in the Northeast, he says, he noticed graffiti on a men's-room wall that said, "Let's kill the Jews." He said he looked in several stalls and found other graffiti, both anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic. (One of the messages said, "Let's kill Osama bin Laden and everybody who looks like him," according to Mr. Levine.) "The best way I've found to gauge the climate of a university is to look at the walls of its men's rooms," he says.
Like Mr. Trachtenberg, however, Mr. Levine was not willing to support Mr. Summers's contention that those who support divestiture from Israel-related stocks are anti-Semitic. "I can't go as far as that," he says. ...
Professors across the country who support divestiture reacted to the speech with shock and anger. "I thought [Summers's comments] were preposterous and quite ludicrous," says Edward Said, a professor of English at Columbia University, whose advocacy for the Palestinian cause includes years of service on the Palestine National Council. "It's the classic Zionist ploy to defame people by identifying criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. It just ain't so."
Ian S. Lustick, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, is against divestiture but nonetheless condemned Mr. Summers's comments. "I think it's absolutely unfair to think of the divestment issue as anti-Semitic," he says. "It's crippling to debate, and it's particularly objectionable for people of responsibility in American universities to say things that cripple debate."2
Connections
Underline the key words in Summers' speech. Use the underlined words to
write a summary of the speech. Then use your paragraph to evaluate both
criticisms and praise for Summers' speech. Choose one individual quoted
in the article and write a sentence or two describing his
characterization of the speech. What similarities do you notice? How do
you account for differences? To what extent do your findings reveal why
the speech is often seen as a defining moment-a moment that changes the
direction of a debate? What parts of the speech sparked the most
controversy?
In response to Summers' speech, the students who edit The Harvard Crimson wrote:
Accusations of bigotry, whether launched at those who oppose Israeli policy or at those who oppose affirmative action, cast a dark shadow on public discourse. They threaten to mar the reputation of those they target and, as a result, can intimidate opponents into retreating from their views. Such accusations chill debate, in effect if not in intent. ...
Summers has every right to speak his mind on political issues, to be sure. But it is incumbent upon him to do so responsibly, in a way that protects the "academic freedom of everyone to take any position," as he himself puts it.
Such freedom requires that indictments for bigotry should be held up to the strictest burdens of proof. Summers is prescient to point to "an upturn in anti-Semitism globally," which is a dangerous threat that must be fought vigorously. But we have seen no evidence for the link he proposes between this worldwide trend and the students and faculty who support divestment at Harvard.3
The students and Summers agree that there is "an upturn in antisemitism
globally" and it must be fought. How do you fight antisemitism? Was
Summers's speech an attempt to do so? According to the editors of The Harvard Crimson,
what standards must individuals and groups meet before they charge
someone with bigotry? Why do the students believe that failing to meet
such standards can "chill debate, in effect if not in intent"? Do you
agree? Did Summers speech chill debate or did it spark discussion?
The editors of The Harvard Crimson saw a relationship
between words that tend to "chill debate" and threats to academic
freedom. Until 1940, there was no official definition of the term
academic freedom. That year the American Association of University
Professors and the Association of American Colleges jointly developed a
definition that states in part:
Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject tot the adequate performance of their other academic duties....
Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject....
College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from instititutional censorship or discipline, but their special poisition in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.4
What does Bronowski's definition of academic freedom add to the one
created by American professors? How are both views reflected in
Summers' speech? To what extent are they reflected in the editorial
that appeared in The Harvard Crimson?
How does Summers describe himself in his speeech? Why do you think he
chose to share his personal story with his audience? What does he want
his listeners to understand about him and how he came to hold the views
he shares in his talk? How does he define antisemitism? What does he
mean when he says that "serious and thoughtful people are advocating
and taking actions that are antisemitic in their effect if not their
intent"?
1 Copyright © 2002 Harvard University
2"A Surge of Anti-Semitism or McCarthyism?" By Thomas Bartlett. The Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 49, p. A14.
3© 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com
4"Summers Stifles Israel Debate" by the Crimson Staff. The Harvard Crimson, September 23, 2002.
5 "1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure." American Association of University Professors.
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