[ Activist and scholar says he is being denied tenure at Harvard
University because of his views on Israeli occupation. There is a long
history of attempts to suppress or have outspoken critics of Israel
fired from academic posts.] [[link removed]]

CORNEL WEST: PALESTINE IS A 'TABOO ISSUE AMONG CERTAIN CIRCLES IN
HIGH PLACES'  
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Azad Essa
February 25, 2021
Middle East Eye
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_ Activist and scholar says he is being denied tenure at Harvard
University because of his views on Israeli occupation. There is a long
history of attempts to suppress or have outspoken critics of Israel
fired from academic posts. _

Cornel_West, Photo by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

 

US activist and philosopher Cornel West said he is confident that
it is his criticism of Israel cost him tenure at Harvard.

The Harvard Divinity School professor of the Practice of Public
Philosophy, who announced late last week that he might leave the
university after being denied academic tenure, claimed he was being
punished for his views on Israel's occupation of Palestine.

"This is my hypothesis, because given the possibilities of why they
would not be even interested in initiating a tenure process, what
else it could be? And I asked them. And I didn't receive a reply,"
67-year-old West, who holds a joint appointment in the Department of
African and African-American Studies, said in an interview on
the TightRope podcast
[[link removed]] aired
on Tuesday.

"The problem is that [talking about the Israeli occupation
of Palestine] is a taboo issue among certain circles in
high places. It is hard to have a robust, respectful conversation
about the Israeli occupation because you are immediately viewed as an
anti-Jewish hater or [having] anti-Jewish prejudices.

"We've got a whole wave of Jewish comrades, Jewish brothers and
sisters, who are critical of the Israeli-occupation, but not in high
places," West said.

In his interview on Tuesday, West, considered one of America's
foremost intellectuals, said the significance of being not granted
tenure was really a case of the university tolerating him
over taking full responsibility for his presence.

In American universities, to be offered tenure means being
granted an indefinite appointment 
[[link removed]]at the institution. Scholars
consider tenure a safeguard for academic freedom.

"I am not a backdoor-going-kind-of-brother. They got the wrong Black
man. If I can't be a free Black man, in the way in which I can
preserve my self-respect, then I am not going to be in a place like
that," West said.

Harvard University has faced criticism in the past
[[link removed]] for
refusing to offer tenure to scholars deemed to be controversial, but
many observers expressed surprise that a scholar of West's experience
could remain untenured.

Harvard University did not respond to MEE's request for comment but
the Boston Globe reported that a Harvard spokesperson had disputed
[[link removed]] West's
characterisation of events.

'Complict in Israeli crimes'

David Klein, a member of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural
Boycott of Israel and a professor of mathematics at California State
University, told MEE that there was a long history of attempts to
suppress or have outspoken critics of Israel fired from academic
posts.

Klein said that West's account was in all likelihood "the tip of the
iceberg".

West is also among the most outspoken critics of police brutality in
the US, white supremacy and homophobia.

In his 2017 convocation 
[[link removed]]address,
West said that if the "decline and fall of the American empire
was in motion, and the dominant forces will be hatred, envy,
resentment, xenophobia, anti-Jewish hatred, anti-Arab hatred,
anti-Palestinian hatred, it'll be targeted on women, and especially
black folk and brown." 

"It is remarkable that one can criticize just about anything on an
American university campus, including the US, but Israel is
effectively off-limits," Klein said.

West has also been a regular fixture in the call for Harvard to
disinvest from companies he describes as "complict in the Israeli
occupation". 

According to the Harvard Crimson newspaper, the university
has investments 
[[link removed]]worth
close to $200m in companies "tied to the Israeli occupation of
Palestine".

Since February 2020, a group called Harvard Out of Palestine
(HOOP), has called 
[[link removed]]on the
university to divest from the companies operating in the occupied
teritories.

"If leading intellectuals like Cornel West or Marc Lamont Hill 
[[link removed]]are
attacked for their principled positions on Palestine, it is not hard
to imagine how less well-known academics would fare," Klein said.

'Stand with West'

West finished his PhD at Princeton University in 1980 and was
subsequently awarded tenure at Yale and then later at Harvard,
rising to the level of university professor, considered the
university's highest honour.

He left Harvard in 2002 after a spat
[[link removed]] with
the then-university president Lawrence H Summers. He returned to
Harvard in 2017 after being offered an untenured position as a
professor of the "practice of public philosophy".

West says he took the position because it was all Harvard was offering
at the time, but this month, he had requested tenure based on a
"positive five-year review". 

The university rejected his request and offered him a 10-year
contract and a pay rise instead, prompting West to speak out. 

'Either you stay or decide to go, but you don't go into the night,
silently' 

- _Cornel West_

"Cornel West is an internationally renowned public intellectual who
has brought prestige to Harvard University," Elsa Auerbach, JVP Boston
member and professor emerita, at the University of Massachusetts, told
Middle East Eye.

"Yet, the university is showing its hypocritical face by, on the one
hand, hiring him in a posture of "antiracism" and, on the other,
deeming him not "worthy" of seeking tenure. The university's stance
makes one wonder what other forces are at play."

"Can it be, as some have suggested, that Professor West's outspoken
criticism of Israeli apartheid policies and his advocacy for justice
for Palestinians have contributed to Harvard's decision? It is
precisely because he speaks truth to power that Harvard should offer
him a tenure-track line, even if it makes some uncomfortable,"
Auerbach said.

On Monday, a group of graduate students at Harvard University
released an open letter 
[[link removed]]expressing solidarity
with West.

"As graduate students who have shared the campus with Dr. West for a
number of years, we view Harvard’s refusal to grant tenure to an
intellectual of Dr. West’s stature as disrespectful both to him and
to the community he has helped raise." the letter signed by dozens of
graduate students, read. 

"There is no doubt that his publications, advancement of knowledge,
public engagement, and teaching record far exceed the requirements of
the most scrupulous of tenure processes."

West said that his decision to speak out was aimed at sending a
message to young Black scholars who face similar challenges in
academia.

"Either you stay or decide to go, but you don't go into the night,
silently. You got to put a public spotlight on what is going on, so
the next generation can be much empowered in this regard."

_[Azad Essa is a senior reporter for Middle East Eye based in New York
City. He worked for Al Jazeera English between 2010-2018 covering
southern and central Africa for the network. He is the author of The
Moslems are Coming (Harper Collins India) and Zuma's Bastard (Two Dogs
Books).]_
 

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