Alumni Letter to Alan Garber, President of Harvard

Dear Harvard alums:

As we face an all-out attack on higher education by the Trump administration, it is more important than ever that we support President Garber in defending academic freedom and free speech. We are heartened to see leaders of other elite universities (for example, Princeton and Cornell) speak out at this critical moment, and we want to urge President Garber to do the same. Academic free speech is at the heart of preserving the impressive research conducted on campuses across the country, and now is the time for all of us to support our university leaders in defending the principles so many of us hold dear to our hearts. We cannot stand by while the basic rights of students and faculty are trampled upon by a Federal government now seeking to undermine the very institutions whose members seek to preserve the kind of discourse essential to democracy.

 

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Dear President Garber, We write to you as Harvard and Radcliffe alumni.

In the wake of the arrest of a Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil -- a US resident with a green card -- for advocating for the rights of Palestinians and protesting Israeli actions in Gaza, we urge Harvard to make an open-letter statement that it will govern its own internal affairs, and protect the free speech and right to due process of all its students, faculty, and staff. In its attempt to terrorize foreign-born students and faculty, the Trump administration is trampling on Columbia’s self-governance.

As a private university, Harvard has the right to regulate campus speech to some extent, to protect all members of the university community from threats. This must be balanced against its fundamental interest in fostering vigorous debate on all issues. The US government, under the First Amendment, does not have any right to limit speech if it does not call for imminent violent or lawless action. No matter how initially popular, such limitations on free speech never work out well for those who need to organize to defend their rights against the powerful.

Neither Columbia nor the US government has made any claim that Khalil’s speech did this. Rather, the Department of Homeland Security claims its right to deport him because, according to its Notice to Appear, “The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

This means that, just like an employee hired or fired “at will”, any foreign-born student, teacher, or staff member (including Dreamers, refugees and green card holders exercising their rights) can be expelled anytime the Trump administration sees fit. It is hard to imagine any government action more destructive of academic freedom and open debate.

Our own time at Harvard was enriched by students and faculty from all over the world. The arrest of Khalil is a threat to Harvard students' ability to speak their minds and be active on issues they care about. It is a threat to educational institutions' ability to present all sides of an issue, even ones unpopular or from foreign shores. It is a threat to debate, and thus a threat to free thinking itself.

Unless the presidents of US colleges and universities speak out and stand together for their students and faculty, the Trump administration will feel no limits in going after those institutions. With Trump saying that Khalil is just “the first arrest of many to come”, he promises to do just that. We cannot appease the Trump administration – it always asks for more. It will soon ask to see our course offerings, speakers' lists, staff's CVs, admissions notes, and so on.

Please publicly defend Harvard’s commitment to its core value of seeking truth through fostering freedom of inquiry, the freedom that has allowed universities to flourish in democratic societies. We must refuse to let the government dictate what can be said at Harvard, or who can say it.

Respectfully,

Jim Stodder, Class of '71