As controversy continues to swirl at Harvard after dozens of scholar teams blamed Israel following the Hamas terrorist assaults, the college’s president is defending the scholars’ proper to free speech — even in the case of “outrageous” beliefs.
Harvard President Claudine Gay in a video addressed the chaotic week on the Cambridge college, the place the scholar teams have been condemned and railed towards for his or her anti-Israel assertion after the Hamas terrorists murdered Israelis and took hostages.
The dozens of teams within the assertion fully blamed Israel for the terrorist assaults.
“Our University embraces a commitment to free expression,” Gay mentioned within the video. “That dedication extends even to views that many people discover objectionable, even outrageous.
“We do not punish or sanction people for expressing such views,” the president added. “But that is a far cry from endorsing them.”
Harvard was not too long ago ranked because the worst faculty free of charge speech within the nation. Harvard ranked final out of 248 schools in a survey of greater than 55,000 college students throughout the U.S., receiving the one “Abysmal” score within the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and College Pulse free speech rankings.
Following the scholar teams’ anti-Israel assertion over the weekend, Harvard alums have been calling for the scholars’ names to be public.
Then, a truck revealing college students’ names and their faces began to drive across the Cambridge campus. The “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites” truck has been displaying the names and pictures of scholars who’re members of the teams that signed the assertion. Students’ private info is being unfold on-line.
“Our University rejects terrorism — that includes the barbaric atrocities perpetrated by Hamas,” Gay mentioned within the video. “Our University rejects hate — hate of Jews, hate of Muslims, hate of any group of individuals based mostly on their religion, their nationwide origin, or any facet of their id.
“Our University rejects the harassment or intimidation of individuals based on their beliefs,” the president added.
Gay pushed for Harvard college students to come back collectively and change into united throughout this disaster, as a substitute of continuous the division.
“We can issue public pronouncements declaring the rightness of our own points of view and vilify those who disagree. Or we can choose to talk and to listen with care and humility, to seek deeper understanding, and to meet one another with compassion,” Gay mentioned.
“We can inflame an already volatile situation on our campus,” the president added. “Or we can focus our attention where it belongs on the unfolding tragedy thousands of miles away. We can ask ourselves how, as human beings, we can be helpful to people who are desperately trying to protect themselves and their families, people who are fighting to survive.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”