“Censorship”: more than 115 researchers condemn the cancellation of the Harvard newspaper number on Palestine | Harvard University

More than 115 education researchers condemned the cancellation of an entire issue of an university review dedicated to Palestine by a publisher of Harvard University as “censorship”.

In an open letter published on Thursday, the researchers denounced the brutal rebuilding of a special issue of the Harvard Education Review – which was revealed for the first time by the Guardian in July – as an “attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, the famine and the dehumanization of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel and its Ally”.

Writers note that censorship of the question is also an example of “anti-Palestinian discrimination, hampering the dissemination of knowledge on Palestine at the height of genocide in Gaza”.

The special issue of the prestigious education newspaper was planned six months in the War of Israel in Gaza to tackle questions about the education of Palestinians, education on Palestine and Palestinians, and related debates in schools and colleges in the United States, as previously reported The Guardian.

“The field of education has an important role to play in supporting students, educators and political decision -makers in the contextualization of what happened in Gaza,” wrote the publishers of the review in their call to summaries – who clashed in the backdrop of the devastation of the educational infrastructure of Gaza, in particular the rupture of hundreds of schools and the destruction of universities in the territory.

More than a year later, the special issue was almost ready – all the articles had been published, contracts with most of the authors had been finalized and the problem had been announced during academic conferences and on the rear coverage of the previous one. But at the end of the process, the Harvard Education Publishing Group, a division of the Harvard Graduate School of Education which publishes the journal, demanded that all the articles be subject to a “Risk Assessment” review by the Advocate General of Harvard – an unprecedented demand.

When the authors protested, the publisher replied by suddenly canceling the problem. In an email obtained by The Guardian, the group’s executive director, Jessica Fiorillo, cited what she described as an inadequate revision process and the need for a “considerable copying” as well as a “lack of internal alignment” on the special problem. She said that the decision was not “due to censorship from a particular point of view and he does not connect to questions of academic freedom”.

The authors and publishers categorically rejected this characterization, telling the Guardian that the cancellation created a dangerous precedent and was an example of what many researchers came to be “exception in Palestine” to academic freedom.

“HEPG’s decision to abandon their own institutional mission – as well as the responsibilities according to which their requirements for cutting -edge stature – is the academicide in action”, the dozens of researchers who have signed the recent letter also wrote, using a term invented by the Palestinian scores to describe the educational system of Israel.

“It is unacceptable that HEPG has chosen to publicly frame their cancellation of the special issue according to academic quality, while omitting publicly declared key facts which indicate censorship.”

ARATHI SRIPRAKASH, professor of sociology and education at the University of Oxford and one of the signatories of the letter, told the Guardian that the cancellation of the special number had mobilized so many education specialists “precisely because we recognize the serious consequences of such threats to academic freedom and academic integrity”.

“The current genocidal violence in Gaza has involved the physical destruction of the entire higher education system there, and now in many education establishments around the world, there are active attempts to prevent learning what is happening completely. As educational, we must remain firmly in our commitment to seeking knowledge and learning without fear or threat. ”

‘Assault on academic freedom ‘

The test around the special question of Palestine took place in the context of the repression of the Trump administration against the autonomy of American higher education establishments on the basis of the fight against anti -Semitism presumed on campuses.

Harvard is the only university that continued the administration in response to the reduction of billions of dollars in federal funds and other punishment measures that it triggered on universities. But internally, Harvard prevented most requests from the administration, in particular by looking at researchers, removing initiatives giving space to Palestinian stories and adopting a controversial definition of anti -Semitism which, according to criticism, is contrary to the academic investigation.

In conversations with the publishers of the Harvard Educational Review, the journal’s publisher acknowledged that he was looking for a legal examination of articles for fear that their publication causes allegations of anti -Semitism, said a editor -in -chief of the newspaper.

Harvard would be close to finalizing a colony with the Trump administration in the sense of those affected by other major universities.

Thea Abu El-Haj, a Palestinian-American anthropologist for education at the Barnard College and one of the 21 contributors to the special issue canceled, criticized the university’s treatment of the question as another sign of institutional capitulation.

“If universities – or in this case a university press – are not willing to defend what is at the heart of their mission, I do not know what they are doing,” she told Guardian last month. “What is the point?”

A spokesperson for the Harvard Graduate School of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comments on the last letter, but in a statement before the Guardian wrote that the publisher “remains deeply attached to our solid editorial process”.

Last month, the freedom of expression Pen America also condemned the cancellation of the special issue as an “blatant assault against academic freedom”.

“The cancellation of an entire number so close to the publication is very unusual, practically unknown,” said Kristen Shahverdian, director of the group’s freedom of expression initiative program, in a statement.

“Silence these learned voices steals academics, students and the public with the opportunity to engage in their ideas. He also sends a scary message in the context of the relentless pressure of the Trump administration on the University of Harvard and the political interference that rises in higher education, including efforts that target the Stock Exchange on Palestine. ”.