By Jeffrey S. Flier and Steven A. Pinker, Contributing Opinion Writers
The publication of the joint statement by Harvard Palestine solidarity groups, the open letter to the Harvard community signed by several hundred Harvard faculty and scholars, and the op-ed in The Crimson by our colleagues Melani Cammett, Ryan D. Enos, and Steven Levitsky offer us an opportunity to clarify our commitment to academic freedom. The common saying that “ideas have consequences” can be abused to justify censoring or punishing people for expressing their opinions — abuse we vehemently oppose. We agree with Cammett, Enos, and Levitsky that the students who issued the joint statement have every right to express their opinions, free of censorship, threats, intimidation, punishment, or having their private information exposed.
If anyone at Harvard has breached the students’ academic freedom in any of these ways, we’d be the first to urge the University, and the new Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, to take a stand against it. (The two of us are among the six co-presidents of the council, as well as the six co-authors of the open letter, but the opinions expressed here are solely our own.)
At the same time, expressing ideas has the legitimate consequence that those ideas may be criticized, sometimes harshly. This would be true in any circumstance, but it is especially appropriate now….
Read more at the Harvard Crimson