Summers Declines To Sign Anti-Intimidation Petition

More than 300 college and university presidents pledged to “maintain an intimidation-free campus” in a petition that appeared in a full-page ad in the New York Times yesterday.

But University President Lawrence H. Summers was not among them.

“In general, I don’t sign petitions, particularly not in areas where I’ve ever had chances to make my case clear,” Summers said yesterday. “I have a general practice of expressing my views in words that I choose rather than signing on to a blanket statement.”

The petition, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, specifically decried recent “death threats and threats of violence” against Jewish students and supporters of Israel.

Brown President Ruth J. Simmons was the only Ivy League president to sign the petition.

Former Dartmouth President James O. Freedman and former Cornell President Frank H.T. Rhodes helped to initiate and circulate the petition, but the current presidents of their universities did not sign it.

Other presidents declined to sign the petition due to its narrow scope, arguing that other groups that have been targets of intimidation should also have been included.

Summers declined to comment on his thoughts about the petition, but he pointed to his Sept. 17 Morning Prayers address at Memorial Church—in which he described efforts to encourage divestment from Israel as “anti-Semitic in their effect if not in their intent”—as a clear statement of his views.

Though he refrained from joining many of his peers in signing the petition, Summers said Harvard frequently collaborates with other universities on issues that are common across higher education, such as financial aid, student visas and academic freedom.

But Summers said commenting on “moral issues” is a different matter.

“I would generally anticipate, as my predecessors have, stating my views in the context of this community rather than joining others in a petition,” he said.

Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse praised the petition as an important effort to combat hatred.

“Freedom of speech allows for expressions of hate, but it doesn’t mean that hate speech should prevail,” she said. “To the contrary, it means that people in positions of leadership have to be that much more vigorous and public in opposing it.”

She noted that Summers’ recent statements regarding anti-Semitism have been widely heard.

“I do appreciate the fact that he really went out in front on this issue, and I just hope that he would continue to do so,” she said.

Rita Hamad ’03, public relations officer for the Society of Arab Students, questioned the scope of the petition.

“I don’t know what brought this on exactly. I could see this applying to lots of different ethnicities or religions,” she said.

—Staff writer Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at shoichet@fas.harvard.edu.