A Tarnished Silver Anniversary

Twenty-five years ago, the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) was rededicated with a clear mission: to instill new generations of leaders with the knowledge and values necessary to run the world fairly. Earlier this month, the KSG held a ceremony in honor of that anniversary, including a procession of students bearing the banners of their home countries. But by refusing to let one student carry the Palestinian flag along with them, the KSG’s administration did a disservice to the vision it commemorated.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is certainly a controversial issue, but carrying the Palestinian flag is hardly an offensive act in itself. The only statement that can be read into the flag with any certainty or legitimacy is support in principle for the existence of a Palestinian state and government—a conclusion which no one but fanatics on either side opposes. Fellow students have been entirely right to rally around a classmate who—far from any extremism—seems to have consistently advocated a peaceful solution to the brutal crisis in his homeland.

Critics have claimed that letting the Palestinian flag into the march’s ranks would have opened up an endless can of nationalistic worms, with students using flags to declare allegiance to every putative “nation” under the sun. But this supposed catastrophe would, in fact, be a model of what the KSG should aim for at all times. The questions involved, those of nationhood in places like Tibet and East Timor, are some of the most pressing in international politics today. If KSG won’t engage them, who will?

The excuse given by the KSG’s administration—that the only nations whose flags could be represented at the ceremony were those recognized by the U.S. State Department—is embarrassing. The KSG is supposed to teach its students to think critically and make good policy, not to be blind apparatchiks to Washington. The State Department may have compelling political reasons not to include the Palestinian Authority on its list of independent states, but Secretary of State Colin L. Powell can’t set the curriculum in Cambridge.

The KSG has waved away responsibility for the shameful decision, insisting that it only followed a University-wide policy. If this is so, then KSG abdicated its own role in bowing to a foolish rule rather than standing up for peace and inclusiveness. Whoever synchronized Harvard’s political clocks with the federal government’s made a serious mistake, and no matter how many excuses it comes up with, the KSG cannot erase the unconscionable impression that it is afraid of political controversy. In barring the Palestinian flag from this month’s proceedings, the school’s administrators gave their anniversary revelry a bitter aftertaste that will not soon fade.