Shots In The Dark
Tuesday, August 14, 2024
  Drew Faust on Israel
Harvard's president has posted a statement regarding the British boycott of Israeli academics.

...Such a move subverts the academic values and freedoms necessary to the free flow of ideas that are the lifeblood of universities and, ultimately, that of the societies and world we serve.

Well said. Concise, eloquent, and correct.

Finally, while I am most comfortable expressing my views on such matters directly in my own words as opposed to signing group statements or petitions, I obviously join many colleagues throughout the international academic community in denouncing...

Less well said. Joining a petition is a great democratic act, something a university president should feel proud to partake in (when appropriate), rather than stand apart or above.
Faust's words would have drawn more attention if they were joined with those of many other insitutions....

Was it perhaps that the petition featured Lee Bollinger most prominently, and Harvard's president could not afford to look subordinate in any context?
  6:18 AM  
Comments:
or does not want to thought of as a lemming......
# posted by Anonymous : August 14, 2024 7:55 AM
 
Even if this perception were possible—though it seems unlikely—isn't that really missing the point?
# posted by Richard Bradley : August 14, 2024 8:11 AM
 
As an inveterate petition signer myself I can say lots of people prefer not to sign petitions, and for perfectly good reasons. As for your last point, I think you are overreading on motives, Richard, and my guess is the reluctance is an institutional one. Some of us tried to get some presidential/institutional action against the upcoming war/patriot act/investment in war profiteering some years ago, and it proved impossible to get the president or university to adopt a position -- though Pres. Summers did, through LETTERS and personal lobbying, help get some good movement on issues of student visas, etc.
# posted by Richard Thomas : August 14, 2024 10:11 AM
 
Agreed on all counts, Richard. I know people who lived through or were close to the McCarthy years are still nervous about petition-signing. Sad.

But yes, I think the reluctance is primarily institutional. I'm just not sure the rationale for it is about logic or about something more emotional.
# posted by Richard Bradley : August 14, 2024 11:23 AM
 
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