Harvard Kennedy School Dean Rejects Proposed Fellowship, Allegedly Based on the Person's "Anti-Israel Bias"

The proposed fellow would have been Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, and apparently a highly prominent expert on the subject.

Here's FIRE's post criticizing this:

The dean of Harvard's Kennedy School has refused to approve the fellowship of the man — hailed as the "godfather" of human rights work — because he disagrees with his stance on Israel.

HKS, one of the top public policy institutions in the world, has violated Harvard's clear commitments to free expression by denying former Human Rights Watch executive Kenneth Roth a fellowship because of his purported "anti-Israel bias." As always, FIRE is neutral on Roth's views on Israel, as well as the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and has defended individuals on every side of the issue.

Harvard's human rights experts reportedly sought Roth for the job after he announced he was stepping down as executive director of Human Rights Watch. Sushma Raman, executive director of HKS's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, invited Roth to join the center as a senior fellow. Roth and Raman agreed on terms, and the fellowship was set to be confirmed, but when it was elevated to HKS Dean Douglas Elmendorf, he refused to approve the deal.

FIRE wrote Dean Elmendorf today to urge him to approve Roth's fellowship, explaining that the school violated Roth's expressive rights by denying him the fellowship because of his views.

As we wrote:

But the Kennedy School undermines its laudable commitment to intellectual diversity and free inquiry when it rescinds a fellowship offer based on the candidate's viewpoint or speech. Specifically, the Kennedy School fails to promote "an atmosphere that welcomes new ideas" when it denies a fellowship to an accomplished human rights advocate and widely-acknowledged leader in the field over disagreement with some of his views.

The Nation speculated that the Kennedy School refused the fellowship because of fear of upsetting donors and defense and intelligence officials who oppose Roth's previous comments or his work at Human Rights Watch.

Pressure and backlash based on a fellow's viewpoints, or purported viewpoints, from those inside or outside of the campus community cannot be the basis for refusing to grant a fellowship. And if pressure is indeed to blame for Elmendorf's decision, it wouldn't be the first time. In 2017, he personally rescinded a fellowship invite to whistleblower Chelsea Manning after CIA head Mike Pompeo criticized the move.

Institutions committed to intellectual diversity and curiosity should welcome those with differing views. As PEN America wrote, "[w]ithholding Roth's participation in a human rights program due to his own staunch critiques of human rights abuses by governments worldwide raises serious questions about the credibility of the Harvard program itself."

Because of its prestige, Harvard's Kennedy School is a model for institutions that hope to emulate its programs, and its distinguished graduates are sought after. But this episode suggests the school may be blocking student exposure to certain viewpoints.

As we told HKS today, the "appropriate response to Roth's criticism of Israel by those who disagree with it is to offer 'more speech' in the form of reasoned criticism or debate. More speech serves the principles of free expression and Harvard's foundational interest in the pursuit of truth."

In 2021, FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff said, "Academic freedom is in the worst position of my career, and perhaps the worst condition it has been in decades — perhaps since the Red Scare." When top institutions violate the expressive and academic freedom rights of their faculty, other institutions believe that they may do so as well. But, in this case, other institutions should not follow Harvard's model: They should strive to be better.

We call on the Harvard Kennedy School to accept Roth's fellowship and publicly reaffirm that Harvard is committed to respecting free expression and academic freedom.

I asked the Kennedy School for their side of the story, and in particular whether Roth was indeed rejected because of his alleged "anti-Israel bias"; here's their official statement in response:

Dean Douglas Elmendorf decided not to make this fellowship appointment, as he sometimes decides not to make other proposed academic appointments, based on an evaluation of the candidate's potential contributions to the Kennedy School.

We have internal procedures in place to consider nominations for fellowships and other appointments, and we do not discuss our deliberations about individuals who may be under consideration.

 

Comments

[rloquitur]

This is a dumb move.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, it indicates that Harvard can't continue to nonchalantly support terrorism with impunity.

They see the writing on the wall...

[Jonathan Affleck]

I was never crazy about Kenneth Roth. He focused on apartheid, which is a secondary Zionist crime, while the primary Zionist crime, which is genocide, is obvious to us in the field of genocide law. Because apartheid is not a US federal crime, addressing Zionist apartheid is "safe" and has no consequences for the US legal system.

There is a fear of addressing the genocide issue because genocide and material support to perpetrators of genocide are US federal crimes, which carry a maximum penalty of death.

If Harvard faculty members, who supported a fellowship for Kenneth Roth, started correctly to accuse the Zionist state of genocide, Elmendorf and his buddies (Robert Belfer, Idan Ofer, and David Rubenstein) would have caused exactly what the Zionist leadership has feared since Dec 1946. I have insider knowledge. Two of my father's relatives participated in a special task group that planned the genocide from Dec 1946 to Dec 1947. They had followed the 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal and had scienter of their intended crime. The genocide started in Dec 1947 and has never ended.

BTW, if you get Samantha Power drunk, she will admit that the Zionist colonial settlers perpetrate genocide, but she will never tell the truth under other circumstances. She is a creation of Martin Peretz and has sold her soul. For the Kennedy School there is special risk for Roth to address Zionist apartheid. If the Zionist state practices apartheid and the KSG receives any federal money, the Harvard Wexner Israel Fellowship program probably creates a Title VI violation.

[David Nieporent]

I was never crazy

Untrue.

[ReaderY]

Well, according to the movement for a free Germany, the Zionists were perpetrating genocide against Germans on a massive scale when they were illegally occupying Germany during the 1930s and 1940s prior to their colonizing Palestine.

For that matter the Czechs were too if you read about the atrocities they committed against Germans in the same press in the events leading up to Munich. Just on a much lesser scale than the Jews.

[Bubba Jones]

Denied for opposing Israel? That's a man bites dog story.

[Jonathan Affleck]

I assume sarcasm. It's a dog bites man story.

[Bob from Ohio]

Good. A Jew who hates Jews. Scum.

[Jonathan Affleck]

A Zionist is not a Jew. A Zionist is a depraved and evil anti-Jew, who murders Judaism by transforming Judaism into a program of genocide.

[Bob from Ohio]

Go away Nazi.

[Jonathan Affleck]

I studied at Brisk and then Jewish studies at Harvard and Yale. I descend from major Rabbinic scholars. While my immediate family is ultra-orthodox and detests Zionism, another branch has produced leaders among Zionist colonial settlers since the 2nd Aliyah. I tried to be a liberal Zionist for about a decade to reconcile the two sides of my family. In order to help the Oslo Process, I worked on an EU contract in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. I was outside the Mosque of Abraham when Baruch Goldstein celebrated Purim by murdering 29 worshipers and wounding 100 more. I had an epiphany that Goldstein is the logical outcome of Zionism. I concluded that Zionism had murdered Judaism by transforming Judaism into a program of genocide. I gave up religion and have one calling today to make sure that every Zionist anti-Jew is hunted down for arrest:

• to be tried for genocidal crimes,
• almost certainly to be convicted, and
• to be sentenced either to a quick jab in the arm or to a long prison term.

---
The mentality of a Zionist is congruent with the mentality of a Nazi.

[David Nieporent]

I studied at Brisk

No, you didn't.

and then Jewish studies at Harvard and Yale.

No, you didn't.

I descend from major Rabbinic scholars.

No, you don't.

[Jonathan Affleck]

So says the legal nitwit that does not know what bailment, message common carriage, or literary property is.

[Noscitur a sociis]

A Zionist is not a Jew.

Isn’t that a good thing? After all, haven’t you said that “Jews, who want to be decent human beings, have no choice but to renounce being Jewish”?

[Aunt Teefah]

“A Jew who hates Jews”, huh? That’s quite a serious charge. It sure would be embarrassing for you if you couldn’t point to even a shred of evidence to support it.

[Jonathan Affleck]

I love my parents and sister. I have no problem with my ultra-orthodox Jewish relatives. They are disappointed in me, but they are understanding of the PTSD that I suffer from the Hebron Massacre.

A depraved and evil Zionist anti-Jew has no Jewishness. His religion consists of:

• commitment to theft of Palestine and to the genocide of Palestinians;
• Holocaust obsession;
• ethnic narcissism and chauvinism; and
• worship of the state of Israel.

---
This vile and disgusting pseudo-religion is true idolatry unlike the occasional Muslim image of Muhammad.

A depraved and evil genocide-supporting Zionist anti-Jew deserves undying hatred, scorn, and loathing from the entire human race.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Why I Call a Vile and Disgusting Zionist Colonial Settler Anti-Jew an Impostor

Rabbinic Judaism (Rabbinism) is barely an Abrahamic religion. Orthodox Christianity and Islam have much greater similarity to Greco-Roman Biblical Judaism than Rabbinism has. I would prefer to use the term Rabbinite instead of Jew. It would clear up tremendous confusion.

Zionism depends on non-Jewish ignorance!

I make a special effort to explain the lies of a depraved and evil genocidal white racial supremacist Zionist anti-Jew.

There were three separate Judaic populations in the Greco-Roman period. The Hellenistic Judaism of the Occidental Roman Empire was Greek-language based and used the Septuagint or later Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible for its Holy Scripture. Only descendants of non-Judean converts practiced Greek-language Judaism. This Judaism was also practiced in Alexandria among Greek speakers. European Judaism was Hellenistic, often used a vernacular version of a Greek Bible, and was ignorant of Hebrew or Aramaic until approximately 850 CE when merchants that practiced Mesopotamian Judaism established a seminary in Venosa, Italy. The Mesopotamian merchants were willing to admit Europeans into their trade networks in the role of junior partners but only if the Europeans were willing to use Mesopotamian religious law for the sole Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).

Palestinian and Phoenician Canaanite/Hebrew-language-based Judaism was practiced among Phoenician and Palestinian Canaanite/Hebrew speakers including those that lived in Alexandria, Carthage, and other Phoenician colonies in N. Africa. This version of Judaism was tied to the Jerusalem Temple cult and was mostly shattered by the destruction of the Jerusalem and Leontopolis Temples. (The Casifia/Ctesiphon Temple probably continued to function until about 300 CE.) The maniac Bar Kochba and his lackey Tannaim (e.g., Ribbi Akiba) completely discredited Biblical and Tannaitic Judaism for the Judean peasantry because Bar Kochba persecuted the peasantry and the Tannaim supported him. The Palestinian population, which practiced Biblical Judaism, converted entirely to Christianity and subsequently mostly to Islam, which is a slight variant of Judean (Jamesian) Christianity in which Jesus is the messiah but not divine. By the beginning of the 3rd century CE most of the Judean peasantry (90% of the population) practiced some form of Judean Christianity.

Aramaic-language-based Judaism was practiced in Mesopotamia/Babylonia. It was initially an Aramaic-language version of Zoroastrianism but adopted the Torah (Pentateuch) in the early Hellenistic period. This community created Rabbinic Judaism. Judah the Prince and Nathan the Babylonian tried to introduce this version of Judaism to Palestine during the 3rd century CE in the form of the Mishnah, but their efforts were mostly scorned by the peasantry.

Scholars have begun to piece this history together in the last 70 years.

Some of this material (e.g., When did Judaism emerge? Far later than assumed, new theory suggests) is creeping into popular literature and journals.

When did Judaism emerge? Far later than assumed, new theory suggests

Every vile and disgusting Zionist colonial settler anti-Jew must be hunted down for arrest:

• to be tried for the international capital crime of genocide,
• almost certainly to be convicted, and
• to be sentenced to a quick jab in the arm or to a long prison sentence.

---
A Zionist anti-Jew is human garbage just as a true-believing Nazi is.

Genocide and material support to perpetrators of genocide are serious federal crimes, whose maximum penalty is a sentence of death.

The presence of millions of depraved Zionist anti-Jews, who are under US jurisdiction and who are committed to subversion of the USA for the sake of Zionism, constitutes perhaps the greatest threat that the USA has ever faced.

[Longtobefree]

"HKS, one of the top public policy institutions in the world . . . "

I don't think so; they are narrow minded bigots.
(cite: the rest of the article)

[Frank Drackman]

Bastard should go live in Ear-ron if he hates Israel so much,
Wait! there's more!
In 2013, Human Rights Watch accepted a $487,000 gift from Saudi billionaire Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber. The donation was solicited and managed by Roth. The donor had been the subject of HRW investigation up through 2012 for coercive business practices. Roth agreed to the Saudi demand that HRW not use this donation to support LGBT rights advocacy in the Middle East and North Africa.

Frank

[Jonathan Affleck]

So what if the Saudi money is not used on behalf of human rights for LGBT rights advocacy? Money is fungible. A white racist genocide supporter gets stupid when he thinks he can throw a rock at an Arab.

[apedad]

"The Nation speculated that the Kennedy School refused the fellowship. . . . "

Oh FFS....

C'mon Prof. Volokh, you're better than this.

[Ed Grinberg]

???
I honestly do not understand your complaint. Could you elaborate?

[apedad]

This whole story is based on The Nation’s SPECULATION about why HKS refused to hire the guy.

No facts just speculation.

They could have speculated the Moon was not aligned with Venus too.

It's a BS blog.

[Bored Lawyer]

"They could have speculated the Moon was not aligned with Venus too."

It's NOT? What a relief.

[Dr. Ed 2]

But if you are standing in Cambridge, it might appear that it is.....

🙂

[Krayt]

True, but they did ask HKS’ side of the story.

Dean Douglas Elmendorf decided not to make this fellowship appointment, as he sometimes decides not to make other proposed academic appointments, based on an evaluation of the candidate’s potential contributions to the Kennedy School.

We have internal procedures in place to consider nominations for fellowships and other appointments, and we do not discuss our deliberations about individuals who may be under consideration.

It is better to put a candle under a tub so those watching you for scurrilous behavior can curse the darkness.

[Seamus]

So do you have a better explanation of why the offer was rescinded? (In forming your answer, please note that commenters Bob from Ohio and Frank Drackman seem to approve the rescinding of the fellowship offer precisely *because* of his criticisms of Israel, and strive to differentiate your view from theirs.)

Maybe there's an application of the Law of Merited Impossibility at work here: "We don't believe that he was denied a fellowship because of his views on Israel, and bigots like him totally deserve it."

[Jonathan Affleck]

It is valuable when depraved supporters of white racial supremacist genocide identify themselves.

Support for the criminal genocidal Zionist state is cratering among Democrats and white Evangelicals. Only venal politicians support the Zionist state. It's probably only a decade or so before the FBI rounds up US Zionists and and Americans, who give material support to perpetrators of genocide, so that they can be tried.

There is no statute of limitations for the crime of genocide in the US federal criminal code.

The maximum penalty for these crimes is death, and I would volunteer to administer the jab to my depraved and evil genocide-supporting Zionist relatives.

[Leo Marvin]

So do you have a better explanation of why the offer was rescinded?

I could speculate any number of explanations, but that’s not how burden of proof works. When bias is alleged, the burden is on the accuser.

And what makes you think an offer was rescinded? A I read the FIRE post, Elmendorf withheld the approval required to make an offer.

[Leo Marvin]

*As I read the FIRE post*

[maclealdo]

Read the Nation article.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

C’mon Prof. Volokh, you’re better than this.

Pure bullshit.

It’s a BS blog.

One bullshit blog building on a foundation established by another bullshit blog.

[Bored Lawyer]

And yet you keep coming back, again and again. What does that say about you?

Check with the doc. I think your meds need adjustment.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

No free swings, clingers.

[John F. Carr]

AP reports (https://apnews.com/article/politics-israel-government-kenneth-roth-human-rights-watch-d74afe324024e5b4ac1bae1b6cbf7268): "But a few weeks later, in July, Roth said the center called and told him that the dean of the school, Douglas Elmendorf, had not approved it. Roth said he wasn’t given a reason but believes it was due to his and his group’s criticism of Israel. It is unclear why it took six months for the decision to become public, though The Nation reported on the issue last week. ... Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School, said she 'couldn’t understand' the decision so she went to Elmendorf for an explanation. He told her that 'they would not approve the fellowship because they considered HRW and Roth to have an anti-Israel bias.'"

[Seamus]

Certain apologists for Israel and its practices like to accuse Israel’s critics of anti-Semitism because (these apologists claim) they hold Israel to a standard they refuse to apply to any other nation.

I’ve noticed that Roth and Human Rights Watch are accused of anti-Semitism because they insist on holding Israel to the *same* standard that they hold other nations. (It’s not enough that HRW accuses China and Burma of “crimes against humanity”, refers to Saudi Arabia as a "pervasive human rights violator", says that Iran’s president is “a serial human rights violator” who “took over the presidency in unfair and unfree elections”, calls out Cuba for “continu[ing] to repress dissent and deter public criticism” and “routinely rel[ying] on long and short-term arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate critics, independent activists, artists, protesters, and others”, refers to North Korea as “one of the most repressive countries in the world”, and criticizes Pakistan for “routinely us[ing] draconian counterterrorism and sedition laws to intimidate peaceful critics,” fostering “[b]lasphemy-related violence against religious minorities” through government persecution and discriminatory laws”, and “carry[ing] out arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial killings with impunity.” They don’t give Israel a tongue bath, so they obviously hate Jews.)

(It will be interesting to see if Volokh Conspirator and long-time HRW critic David Bernstein comes here and says, “Good. Roth *should* have been denied that fellowship because he’s a self-hating Jew.”)

[Social Justice is neither]

You might want to look at your chosen comparables to understand you've got a bit of a bias going on. I guess I could liken you to Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, BTK and the Zodiac Killer to "prove" I hold you to the same standard as some other group of people; unsaid of course is how you made the list against what comparable metrics but hey, that's how you lie by omission.

You'll look at the Israeli citizens blown to pieces as they shop and declare they deserved it while condemning Israel for destroying military and terrorist assets the Palestinians deliberately put among civilians.

[Seamus]

You’ll look at the Israeli citizens blown to pieces as they shop and declare they deserved it while condemning Israel for destroying military and terrorist assets the Palestinians deliberately put among civilians.

My memory gets fuzzy in my old age. Please remind me of where I (or Human Rights Watch) ever said that Israeli citizens "deserved it" when they got "blown to pieces as they shop[ped]."

[Leo Marvin]

Certain apologists for Israel and its practices like to accuse Israel’s critics of anti-Semitism because (these apologists claim) they hold Israel to a standard they refuse to apply to any other nation.

And some antisemites do hold Israel to a standard they refuse to apply to any other nation. That doesn't mean every antisemite does or that everyone who does it is an antisemite. Some Israel supporters over-allege antisemitism. Some antisemites hide behind anti-Zionism. Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are significantly but far from perfectly overlapping sets. Happy?

Back to the topic: HRW, Israel, and as long as you bring him up, David Bernstein. If you read Bernstein's posts on Sarah Whitson et al, and you still believe HRW is an honest broker on Israel-Palestine, I don't know what to tell you. Before those posts I was somewhat reflexively pro-HRW. After the posts I continued to admire the work HRW does in much of the world, but it's undeniable HRW has a side in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and it's not Israel.

[Jonathan Affleck]

There are only two sides in the war that depraved and evil Zionist anti-Jews wage on the human race.

I explain in The Society and Culture European Zionist Colonial Settler Anti-Jews Have Been Trying to Murder Since 1881!.

Here's the punchline for those that want to skip to the end.

The actions of the depraved, evil, and criminally genocidal Zionist movement have destroyed a wealth of information

• that pertained to one of the most critical regions for human development and
• that could help scholars to understand one of the most critical periods of the human race.

---
Every Zionist and supporter of Zionism has participated in possibly the most heinous crime against human knowledge in the history of the human race.

[Leo Marvin]

backs away slowly (Turn sound on)

[ReaderY]

One is reminded of the time during Reconstruction, when there were black officials in governments and even black-majority local governments in the South. There were a whole bunch of stories about evil and savage niggers using their government jobs to rape white women and cause mayhem. They have to be put back in their place or they’ll kill us all! And people bought it hook, line, and sinker. Rhetoric llke this proceeded almost every coup and mass lynching.

The sorts of things they imagined black people might do if they had power simply became the things they did, no evidence required.

Is the Israeli government perfect? No way. Frankly, some of those reconstructionist Black governments were corrupt, although mostly no more so than the white people who strung them up and replaced them.

But there’s a big difference between killing a handful of civilians during a military operation, not kicking squatters out of land that isn’t theirs, and similar things, and “genocide.”

The very floridness of the prose, its intensity, is highly reminiscent of the way the Ku Klux Klan used to describe black people with any government power (or any power at all) when it was in a position to foment coups. Since, after all, black people are darkness itself, evil and savage in their very nature, naturally they do all kinds of evil and savage things. Any rule they have has to be, by its nature, misrule.

Jews here are being described in similar ways. Sure, the Ku Klux Klan distinguished good niggers from bad niggers. Good niggers knew their place as servants. This seems to be more or less how good Jews are being distinguished from those evil Zionist Jews here.

[Seamus]

I didn’t recognize the name of Sarah Whitson, so I put in into the search box up in the upper right, and since the search engine looks through the entire Reason website, the first thing that came up was an article by Jacob Sullum (https://reason.com/2007/08/31/but-our-war-crimes-were-heroic/), which says that “Hezbollah is angry about a new Human Rights Watch report that condemns the group’s rocket attacks on civilians during last year’s war with Israel” and quotes Whitson in particular as saying,”The fact that more Israeli civilians didn’t die is not a tribute to Hezbollah but a tribute to Israeli bomb shelters, . . . . The point we’re making is that even though they say ‘only 43 Israeli civilians were killed’ that doesn’t make it OK.”

The second hit was an article by Joe Seyton (https://reason.com/2018/08/22/saudi-arabia-wants-to-execute-this-femal/), which quotes Whitson as saying, “Every day, the Saudi monarchy’s unrestrained despotism makes it harder for its public relations teams to spin the fairy tale of ‘reform’ to allies and international business.”

So far, it looks like Sarah Whitson really sucks at being an anti-Semite or an apologist for Arab human rights violators.

The third (and last hit) given by the Reason search engine was a post by David Bernstein, in which he accuses HRW of being “maniacally anti-Israel.” As evidence for this charge, he doesn’t cite anything that HRW says about Israel (which might allow the reader to reach his own conclusion about how “maniacal” the criticism is), but point to HRW’s “raising funds among the elite of one of the most totalitarian nations on earth, with a pitch about how the money is needed to fight ‘pro-Israel forces,’ without the felt need to discuss any of the Saudis’ manifold human rights violations, and without apparent concern that becoming dependent on funds emanating from a brutal dictatorship leaves you vulnerable to that brutal dictatorship later cutting off the flow of funds, if you don’t ‘behave.'” Since we just saw how HRW *doesn’t* withhold criticism of the “Saudi’s manifold human rights violations,” you’ll forgive me if I find Bernstein’s accusations less than persuasive.

[Leo Marvin]

So far, it looks like Sarah Whitson really sucks at being an anti-Semite or an apologist for Arab human rights violators.

And you suck at not putting words in my mouth. I never said Whitson is an antisemite or an apologist for Arab human rights violators. I said HRW has an anti-Israel bias, a bias evidenced in a series of Bernstein posts, including ones featuring Whitson. Those posts are well over a decade old, so you wouldn’t find them in the Reason search box. Try this for starters.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I respect FIRE and was around when it was formed, but anything more than a pro-forma objection is wrong here.

These are Nazis, acting like Nazis, and they do not belong at Harvard!

[Mr. Bumble]

Because Harvard has already met its quota?

[Sarcastr0]

Human Rights Watch is...Nazis.

Ed's done it again, folks!

Just an incredible showing; where he gets his instinct for finding a take worse than you could imagine existing, the world may never know.

[David Nieporent]

Just an incredible showing; where he gets his instinct for finding a take worse than you could imagine existing, the world may never know.

Guy who just this past week advocated mass murder of unarmed people — including women and children — calls other people Nazis.

[Aunt Teefah]

Average “free speech absolutist” and “cancel culture opponent” when he sees speech he doesn’t like.

[Steven Howard]

Kudos to Harvard Dean Elmendorf for denying the fellowship to a person with clear and obsessive bias against a country based solely on the religious make up of that country. His organization for years ignored massive human rights violations by other countries not composed primarily of Jews, and instead focused and magnified less significant possible violations by Israel, while ignoring anything positive about the country and how it treats its minority religions. Providing Roth with this prestigious fellowship would have added prestige and dignity to his pronounced bias.

[rloquitur]

Look, I am pro-Israel, and I think a lot of the defenses of Palestinian terrorism and the fly-specking of so-called Israeli war crimes etc. is just bunk. But, it cannot be denied that life sucks in Gaza, and life ain't great for Palestinians in the West Bank. To expect Israel to do more isn't Nazism. Roth has opinions. So what? Everyone does.

[David Nieporent]

Without expressing any opinion on Roth/HRW, it also cannot be denied that the Israeli occupation of Gaza ended almost two decades ago.

[DRM]

Is there any actual evidence that Mr. Roth was denied the position because of his views on Israel?

I mean, in an absence of actual evidence as to why he wasn't hired, we can invent all sorts of speculation. Maybe someone quietly informed Dean Elmendorf that Roth had a long record of sexual harassment of young women that HRW kept quiet with payoffs and NDAs, for example.

Why, no, I have no evidence that Mr. Roth engaged in such behavior. Or that he was one of Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's clients. Or that he embezzled funds from Human Rights Watch. Or any of a thousand other acts of turpitude that would cause any sane dean to refuse to hire him. And to accuse Mr. Roth of any such, without being able to provide evidence, would be defamation.

Which means that if Dean Elmendorf had been quietly informed of such behavior and decided not to hire him on such a basis, Dean Elmendorf would not be able to offer that as an explanation of not hiring him. Which would leave Mr. Roth and his allies free to go to the press and say that Dean Elmendorf refused to hire him because of his views, secure that the law would prevent Harvard or Dean Elmendorf from providing a good explanation.

[maclealdo]

From the article: 'Sikkink was even more surprised by the dean’s explanation: Israel. Human Rights Watch, she was told, has an “anti-Israel bias”; Roth’s tweets on Israel were of particular concern. Sikkink was taken aback. In her own research, she had used HRW’s reports “all the time,” and while the organization had indeed been critical of Israel, it had also been critical of China, Saudi Arabia—even the United States.'

[Leo Marvin]

I criticize Donald Trump. I also criticize Joe Biden. To suggest that means I don't have a strong anti-Trump bias (I do and I'm proud of it) would be laughable.