Donor Driven Censorship at Harvard
- Reversal of decision to block senior fellowship for Ken Roth former head of Human Rights Watch over alleged “anti-Israel bias” does not address core issue
Ken Roth the former head of Human Rights Watch, and probably one of the world’s best known advocates for human rights, had a senior fellowship offered to him by the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. However, the offer was vetoed by the school’s Dean, Douglas Elmendorf and the Carr Centre was stunned. Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights at the Kennedy School went to see Elmendorf to find out why and told AP “they would not approve the fellowship because they considered Human Rights Watch and Roth to have an anti-Israel bias.” However, Prof. Sikkink was unequivocal that was not true having told the Nation “he would make a terrific fellow.”
The director of the Carr Centre who had nominated Roth for the fellowship, Mathias Risse, called the decision a “profoundly sad moment for me personally,” and said he is concerned about academics having the freedom to explore human rights violations by certain governments. “We all need to worry about that,” Risse told the Boston Globe. “That’s why it’s especially important that Harvard live up to its motto — Veritas. What good is all the power and prestige associated with this institution if we don’t even live up to our own motto?”
Mathias Risse went on: “My subsequent conversation with Ken Roth to explain this decision to the extent I could was one of the lowest moments in my professional life.”
Therefore, with two primary sources, highly respected academics at Harvard offering what looks like de facto evidence the richest university in the world with a stellar reputation is not only engaging in censorship, in vetoing this appointment, is it also betraying any concept of academic freedom?
Prof Sikkink was taken aback by Dean Elmendorf ’s allegations of bias and sent him a detailed email to rebut his allegations which was covered in The Nation when it broke this story and looks like an indictment for violating academic freedom. She pointed out that she used Human Rights Watch reports in her research constantly and pointed out that the organisation was not only critical of Israel but China, Saudi Arabia and even the United States.
In that email she told the Nation she used the Political Terror Scale compiled by the University of North Caroline to illustrate why HRW was not biased. The scale uses political imprisonment, summary executions, torture and so forth on the scale of 1 to 5 to assess just how repressive countries are with the higher the score the more egregious the regime. The team that compiles the scale uses human rights reports on each country compiled by the US State Department, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Israel and the Occupied Territories usually come within the 3 to 4 range each year. Prof Sikkink was quite explicit in describing that as “a very bad” record placing Israel in the same league as Angola, Colombia, Turkey, and Zimbabwe!
Perhaps the most telling point rebutting any allegation that Human Rights Watch showed bias towards Israel is that its assessments and conclusions are fully consistent with those produced by Amnesty International and the US State Department. Prof Sikkink concluded that any suggestion that Human Rights Watch is biased on that basis is not only untrue but represents “misinformation.”
Did Prof. Sikkink get a reply from Dean Elmendorf in response to her email which seemed to leave no doubt that the case against Ken Roth was based on misinformation? Dean Elmendorf told her he read her email but he would not change his decision.
Now we know Dean Elemndorf after a massive international surge of protest discovered he made an ‘error’ in blocking Ken Roth. But important to note there was no evidence of bias except actual or perceived donor objections from very powerful Israel supporters!
In an open letter to Harvard, Human Rights Watch prior to the reversal of the decision warned Harvard’s President powerful that blocking a fellowship for Ken Roth “will doubtlessly have repercussions for academic freedom throughout Harvard University”. In that letter, acting executive director Tirana Hassan raised the issue of HRW’s 2021 report in which it found that Israeli authorities are committing the crime against humanity of apartheid against millions of Palestinians, a finding which media reports show drew extreme criticism from many strong supporters of Israel including prominent donors to the Kennedy School. However, as pointed out in that letter this was not a radical or even an unexpected finding given that it is consistent with many other leading human rights organisations, including those based in Israel. To illustrate how “bias” even in that context cannot even remotely be sustained it is worth emphasising as pointed out in that letter that it is “in line with those of many other respected institutions, including prominent Israeli human rights organisations B’Tselem and Yesh Din, as well as Amnesty International, several United Nations mechanisms and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic. Other prominent voices, including the former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the governments of South Africa and Namibia, and the foreign ministers of Luxemburg and France, have also referenced apartheid in relation to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.”
Leading academics in the Kennedy School are not alone in concluding in the words of Sikkink that Ken Roth would make ‘a terrific fellow’ at Harvard and any suggestion that he or Human Rights Watch were guilty of bias towards Israel was ‘misinformation.’
So why in the first instance did Dean Ekmendorf turn down Ken Roth’s appointment as a senior fellow based on ‘misinformation’?
After the Dean reversed himself stating he made an ‘error’ in blocking Roth’s fellowship the former head of HRW issued a statement which exposed the real issue at stake here is donor driven censorship and by simply reversing his decision Elemendorf or Harvard have not addressed the threat posed to academic freedom. Specifically, the Dean did not reveal the “people who matter” who prompted him to veto Roth’s fellowship! Ken Roth pointed out after three decades running HRW he had the capacity to mobilise global interest in this issue and secure a reversal. Dean Elemendorf in not providing the full facts as to why he vetoed the appointment is only confirming that Roth had the capacity to mobilise local and international attention on his being cancelled and secure a reversal of the original decision. In other words, there is no indication of a clear commitment to protect academic freedom especially in relation to sending a clear message that legitimate criticism of Israel will not be career killer?
