Petition Calls for Academic Freedom

Over 1,000 academics, including 21 Harvard faculty members and 16 students have signed a petition calling for greater action in protecting the freedom and accessibility of educational institutions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The petition, released online March 15, was written by the six-member executive committee of the Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (FFIPP), which includes Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics John Womack ’59 and four professors from other universities.

“The situation has been getting more and more difficult for the universities to function,” said Chair of the Classics Department Richard F. Thomas, who serves on the advisory board of the FFIPP. “It seems to be the job for those of us who feel obliged to support education, which is perhaps the only way of helping both groups get towards an understanding.”

Mendelsohn said that there was no specific impetus for the petition, which had 1,045 signatures last night, but that the FFIPP was becoming increasingly concerned about the constraints on universities’ ability to operate—particularly after the construction of the separation wall between Israeli and Palestinian territories.

Mendelsohn said that the petition addresses “the severe constraints on movement on people in the West Bank, and therefore the difficulty of normal patterns of university life being carried out.”

He said students and faculty members are often unable to get to classes, and the petition states that “what should be a 30-minute drive is now an arduous, dangerous and often impossible trip for students, teachers and staff, often taking up to eight hours or more.”

Womack said that Birzeit University in the West Bank had been closed repeatedly for indeterminate amounts of time and some of its buildings have been destroyed.

“[Students and faculty] are doing heroic work every day to try and carry on an education, much less anything else,” Womack said.

Secretary of Harvard Students for Israel Eric R. Trager ’05 said that the petition misrepresents the situation.

“What is most disturbing about this petition is that it completely misconstrues the notion of cause and effect,” Trager said. “It laments the separation fence and the Israeli military presence in the territories without taking note of why the fence is being built in the first place and why the military is there in the first place. It really emphasizes the human tragedy of just one side of a two-sided conflict in a way that is repugnant to the senses.”

FFIPP was formed approximately two years ago to provide coordination among academics concerned about educational freedom in the occupied territories, Womack said. Its advisory board also includes Stanfield Professor of International Peace Jeffry Frieden, Cabot Research Professor of Social Ethics Herbert C. Kelman and Shattuck Professor of Education Catherine E. Snow, as well as other academics from universities in the United States and other countries.

Mendelsohn said that the group focuses on protecting academic freedom, but that this necessarily includes broader issues.

“You can’t totally divorce [academic freedom] from other issues,” Mendelsohn said. “There are lots of other organizations that deal with these other issues, but we’re primarily aimed at an academic focus. This is what the group had in common.”

H. Amelia Chew ’04, one of the 16 students who have added her name to the petition, said that she heard about the petition from an e-mail list.

“I’m against the occupation and the building of the wall there, and as a student, taking the opinion of academic freedom seemed like a good approach,” Chew said.

—Staff writer Katharine A. Kaplan can be reached at kkaplan@fas.harvard.edu.