Ivy League universities in the US have a reputation for being centers of smarts, the nation’s brain trusts. But let me tell you, dear reader, from my own personal experience at one of them: even intelligent Ivy League folks can sometimes do terribly dense things.
The latest example comes from Harvard’s Kennedy School, where the leadership has bizarrely decided to block the appointment of one of the world’s most prominent human rights defenders for a fellowship with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
The person in question is my old boss, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth.
It appears the reason his appointment was blocked was Ken’s and Human Rights Watch’s criticism of human rights violations by the government of Israel.
Newsflash: criticizing governments is what human rights defenders do. If you’re running a center for human rights policy, and you want to staff it with people who actually know what they’re talking about – people who have a track record of defending human rights – then you’re going to get people who have criticized governments.
Often. And a lot.
The government of Israel is not special. It doesn’t get a pass. We criticize governments committing human rights abuses from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe and everyone in between, Israel included.
The fact is, as we concluded in an exhaustive 2021 report, Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, as defined under international law, against millions of Palestinians. What are we supposed to do? Not say anything about it?
And we’re hardly the only ones calling out the crime of apartheid, by the way. The prominent Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem and Yesh Din, as well as Amnesty International and several United Nations mechanisms are all saying much the same.
Finally, here’s the kicker: even Harvard Law School’s own International Human Rights Clinic agrees with what we – and Ken – have been saying. In March, they found that, “Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank are in breach of the prohibition of apartheid and amount to the crime of apartheid under international law.”
The Harvard Kennedy School’s decision to deny Ken a fellowship looks poorly judged. We’ve written them, asking them to reconsider.
And to live up to their reputation as smart people.