“Free speech” is a fine principle, but, as a foundation of
the University’s business, it is both insufficient and vague.
In the Faculty meeting on Nov. 13, I moved “that this faculty
commits itself to fostering a civil dialogue in which people with a
broad range of perspectives feel safe and are encouraged to express
their reasoned and evidence-based ideas.” I intended this motion not as a
new law but as an ethical pledge to think and talk about how to fulfill
the university’s highest ideals in the context of difficult issues in
difficult times. My colleagues voted massively (74-27) to “table” the
motion—that is, to end discussion of it and to avoid a vote on it—for
various reasons, some of which remain unclear because debate was cut off
so quickly.
The major reasons vocalized, however, were that Faculty
legislation in 1990 has already affirmed our commitment to “free speech”
and that voting down such an inherently reasonable motion would
generate embarrassing news headlines. The clear premise was that the
majority intended to vote down the motion because it had arisen in the
context of what many of my colleagues and I regard as the widespread
censorship of dissent about Israel-Palestine on campus and in the nearby
bookstores that are an essential part of the intellectual life of the
University.
This massively lopsided vote demonstrates the truth of
then-President Derek C. Bok’s 1984 observation: “Americans give
overwhelming support to free speech as an abstract proposition but
quickly change their minds when they encounter concrete cases involving
the expression of unpopular ideas.” Even as they voted to end a
reasoned debate before even half of the professors with raised hands had
been allowed to speak, 74 bearers of Ph.D.s and similar degrees failed
to notice that they were themselves engaged in an exemplary suppression
of free speech. Perhaps they even thought that their vote to shut the
minority up was merely an instance of their own free speech.
Moreover, they did so in unambiguous violation of Robert’s Rules
of Order, the standard of parliamentary procedure in Faculty meetings.
It states, “The motion to Lay on the Table…violates the rights of the
minority and individual members if it is for any other purpose” than “to
lay the pending question aside temporarily when something else of
immediate urgency has arisen,” such as the early flight of a key
participant in the assembly or the need to investigate the matter
further. No immediate urgency was either present or asserted at the time
that the Faculty parliamentarian authorized the motion and the faculty
voted to table the motion. The fervor of their conviction also blinded
74 Ph.D.s to the fact that they were proving my point—that the
Israel-Palestine debate has been subject to a unique degree of
censorship on campus, and this at a time when the entire world most
needs for the matter to be discussed with civility, balance, and reason.
Hence the principle of “free speech” is not, in this or any
other case, a sufficient ethic for the University. Some expression—such
as deliberate threats, lies, and libel—should under most circumstances
be forbidden. However, it would be difficult for university scholars to
agree on any type of speech that should be forbidden under all
circumstances. What is clear is that it is the University’s preeminent
mission not to foster every kind of expression but to foster a specific
style and range of communication—based upon systematic investigation,
scrupulously logical analysis, respect for reasoned and evidence-based
dissent, and avoidance of ad hominem attacks in the resolution of
disagreements.
Members of the Harvard Faculty have been hired and made to feel
safe while propagating ideas about the allegedly different mental
capacities of different sexes and races, about the alleged virtues of
torture, about the alleged innocence of white Americans’ treatment of
Native Americans, about our black students’ allegedly being the cause of
grade inflation at Harvard, and about the allegedly bestial and
masochistic qualities of the Palestinian people. And the exponents of
such opinions continue to enjoy free speech and the cooperation of their
colleagues. Yet dissenting opinions about Israel-Palestine are confined
to back-corridor whispers.
If we do not face the issue of how the conversation about the
Israel-Palestine issue in particular has been shut down, the principle
of “free speech” will remain an empty, abstract principle. With my
motion, I did not ask my colleagues to agree with me about Israel or
even about the disadvantages of the dearth of high-ranking minorities on
the Faculty Council and in the University administration—another major
obstacle to dialogue among a necessary range of perspectives about
University policy and practice. I asked them, as my partners in the
pursuit of truth and fairness, to add their thoughts and efforts to
creating a conversation full of respect and free of intimidation about
even the hottest of issues—a conversation in which people with a broad
range of reasoned opinions and historical perspectives are actively
invited to participate, a conversation in which the majority and the
most highly placed people do not assume that, once they have heard from
each other, they have heard enough. Their response was a massive and
freely spoken vote to shut the conversation down.
J.
Lorand Matory ’82 is professor of anthropology and of African and
African-American studies.