Harvard Department Reverses Decision to Cancel Lecture by Poet Who Has Harshly Criticized Israel By PIPER FOGG
The English department at Harvard University has reissued an invitation that it had rescinded just last week to a University of Oxford poet and professor who has harshly criticized Israel. Department officials said Wednesday that they had reinvited Tom Paulin -- despite reported opposition from Harvard's president -- in order to make a statement about free speech.
Mr. Paulin, who grew up in Northern Ireland, was originally scheduled to give the annual Morris Gray poetry lecture at Harvard last Thursday, but the English department canceled the lecture earlier in the week after faculty members and students complained about the poet's political statements. (See an article from The Chronicle, November 13.)
In April, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly published an interview with Mr. Paulin which quoted him as calling Israel "an historic obscenity" and said he had "never believed Israel had the right to exist at all." In regards to "Brooklyn-born Jewish settlers," Al-Ahram also quoted him as saying, "They should be shot dead. I think they are Nazis, racists, I feel nothing but hatred for them."
Mr. Paulin later said that those comments were taken out of context and did not represent his true views. He has, however, also expressed anti-Israeli views elsewhere.
The department's faculty met on Tuesday night for two-and-a-half hours to discuss the controversy. The department's chairman, Lawrence Buell, said in a statement on Wednesday that the English faculty had "carefully discussed and then resolved, without opposition, to renew the invitation on behalf of the entire department." He specifically cited the department's belief in the importance of free speech. "While we in no sense endorse the extreme statements by Mr. Paulin that have occasioned concern in the Harvard community, we support a university environment that is host to a diversity of views," he said.
Mr. Buell also said that the original decision to rescind the invitation had been made by "mutual agreement between the members of the Morris Gray committee and Mr. Paulin, in a climate of great concern within the Harvard community, on the part of faculty, students, and staff."
Harvard's president, Lawrence H. Summers, was reported to have been angered by the original invitation to Mr. Paulin.
In a statement Wednesday, Mr. Summers said: "We are ultimately stronger as a university if we together maintain our robust commitment to free expression, including the freedom of groups on campus to invite speakers with controversial views." Mr. Summers also said that in the past he has made clear his "concerns about speech that may be viewed as lending comfort to anti-Semitism." He said he hoped "people with differing points of view will feel free to air them in responsible ways."
Reached at his office at Columbia University, where he is a lecturer this semester, Mr. Paulin declined to comment. He referred to a statement he made in April to the BBC, in which he expressed a "life-long commitment to fighting racism in all its forms." In that statement, Mr. Paulin also wrote, "I fully understand that some of what was reported in the original article is deeply offensive to all right-thinking people. My quoted remarks completely misrepresent my real views. For that, I apologize."
One of Mr. Paulin's colleagues at Columbia, David Scott Kastan, a professor of English literature, said he was "delighted" that Harvard had changed its position and reinvited him. He said that Mr. Paulin is an excellent teacher and that his course at Columbia has been very well-received.
Mr. Kastan said that while people certainly have the right to object to Mr. Paulin's comments, universities should be careful about using a litmus test to decide who can and cannot speak on campus. "Tom, in fact, has repudiated the things he was quoted as saying," added Mr. Kastan. "All of us have said things at different times we wish we could take back and reformulate."
Meanwhile, the University of Vermont, which also had canceled an appearance by Mr. Paulin, may rethink its position. Mr. Paulin was to have spoken there on Wednesday. Robyn Warhol, chair of the English department, said the professor who invited the poet to Vermont had a conversation with Mr. Paulin on Tuesday night. They discussed the controversy at Harvard, she said, and decided he should not come. Ms. Warhol said she was pleased Harvard had decided to reinvite Mr. Paulin, and she plans to have a faculty meeting this week to discuss the possibility of inviting him again.