Harvard University dismissed two faculty members of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies in March after the CMES faced accusations of ideological bias and antisemitism regarding teaching on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Cemal Kafadar, former director of CMES and a professor of Turkish Studies at Harvard, and Rosie Bsheer, former associate director of CMES and a professor of history, were fired from their roles in the department March 26, according to the Harvard Crimson.
The dismissals came just days before the decision to review almost $9 billion in federal contracts and grants at Harvard by the Department of Education, Health and Human Services and the U.S. General Services Administration was announced, according to a March 31 press release on the DOE website.
“Urgent action and deep resolve are needed to address this serious problem that is growing across America and around the world,” Alan Garber, president of Harvard, wrote in the March 31 statement. “It is present on our campus. I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president.”
The dismissal of the CMES directors prompted mixed reactions from university professors and Jewish organizations in the days after it was announced.
“[Universities] are submitting in advance to what they anticipate government pressures will be,” said Joan Scott, a member of the American Association of University Professors Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. “They’re cleaning house. This is a kind of cowardly, craven submission to anticipate. It’s anticipated obedience.”
Scott said professors having the right to express their political views is a core statute of the AAUP. She said she believes these faculty dismissals are an example of federal overreach by the Trump administration.
“They want to make unthinking patriots out of the student body of the United States so that they can impose their rules and regulations without any questioning or opposition,” Scott said.
Steven Katz, a professor of religion at BU, questioned the extent of academic freedom professors should wield.
“The fact is that someone is an expert, so called, doesn’t mean that they’re using the position as a professor in a classroom fairly,” Katz said. “They can’t do it in a way that’s ideological and political.”
Robert Leikind, director of the New England office for the American Jewish Committee, said he believes a lack of education on antisemitism has led to discouraging situations for Jewish students.
“[In] many instances, people working in academic environments haven’t had a tremendous amount of knowledge or insight into antisemitism,” Leikind said. “There is a tremendous need for education, which includes recognizing that antisemitism has been a reality for many Jewish students who have been shunned, demonized, isolated [and] threatened in various different situations.”
Scott said claims of antisemitism are being conflated with criticism of Israel and used as excuses for the federal government to defund and shutter programs at certain universities.
“Israel is not a victim right now,” Scott said. “Jews are not victims right now of anybody, certainly in Israel or the Middle East, Jews are a nuclear-armed power that is hardly a victim.”
Harvard is not alone in removing faculty due to controversies surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Helyeh Doutaghi, an associate research scholar at Yale Law School, who is not a faculty member, was terminated from her employment March 28 following a three-week long investigation into her alleged ties to a US-designated terrorist entity, Samidoun.
“Yale has repeatedly requested to meet with Ms. Doutaghi and her attorney,” Alden Ferro, senior associate director of public affairs at Yale Law School, wrote in a statement March 28. “Unfortunately, she has refused to meet to provide any responses to critical questions, including whether she has ever engaged in prohibited activity with organizations or individuals that were placed on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list.”
In response to the Harvard dismissals, AAUP’s Harvard chapter released a statement March 31 condemning the terminations and urging faculty to be reinstated in their roles at the CMES.
“These terminations violate the principle of academic freedom at the heart of our institutional mission and set a bleak precedent for free inquiry and expertise at the university,” the statement read. “At a minimum, the administration of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences should release any reports or evaluations of CMES’s alleged failure to meet its new standard.”
Boston’s chapter of Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff and the Genocide and Holocaust Crisis Network spoke out with concerns over the terminations of Kafadar and Bsheer’s posts.
“We stand beside Professors Kafadar and Bsheer and their right to academic freedom free from interference, intimidation or punishment,” the April 7 statement reads.
Leikind said the extent of criticism toward Israel is not always reflective of its actions.
“It’s automatically assumed that Israel is genocidal and involved in ethnic cleansing and apartheid. And these are, in most instances, not fact-based discussions or assumptions,” Leikind said. “When that happens, you’re moving from the realm of serious discussion and inquiry into a process of demonization.”
The complexity of the situation has not gone unrecognized, and is one that requires intense study to understand said Katz
“It’s not a simple question to just have an opinion on this,” Katz said. “Obviously, I think the October action was barbaric, savage, killing children, raping women. But the whole question about the Arab-Israel conflict is a large, large question.”
Scott said the dismissals of faculty from Harvard and Yale are antidemocratic actions by the Trump administration.
“The intervention of the government in saying what can and cannot be taught, what can and cannot be researched, is a deep violation of what in democracies is thought to be the autonomy of the university,” Scott said. “The place that decides for itself, with its faculty, with its advisors, with administrators, what can and can’t be taught.”
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