Harvard Kennedy School Professor's Rejecting Students' Class Project Discussing "Jewish Democracy" in Israel

was a violation of free speech principles, Harvard concludes.

That was the Kennedy School's conclusion, in endorsing a report by an outside employment and education law firm (Kurker Paget LLP). Three Israeli students in Prof. Marshall Ganz's "Organizing: People, Power, Change" course complained that Ganz had rejected their class project proposal's description of Israel as a "Jewish democracy." (The story seems to have been broken by the Jewish Insider [Haley Cohen] on Oct. 30.) From the report:

It is undisputed that:

• When the Parties met on February 27, 2023, Professor Ganz told the Students they could not describe Israel as a "liberal-Jewish democracy" because Israel is not democratic.
• In a March 2, 2023 email, Professor Ganz wrote that the Students' statement of purpose was "not acceptable going forward," and he instructed them to revise it. In a later email that night, Professor Ganz wrote, "I cannot permit [a debate of the question of 'Jewish democracy'] to claim the very limited time and space in a class in which 116 students are enrolled to learn to practice organizing. Please find a way to describe your organizing project in terms that are respectful of others in the class." {There is no evidence that the Students intended to debate whether Israel is a democracy in the Jewish homeland. According to Professor Ganz, certain teaching fellows sought to debate this issue, which Professor Ganz rightfully stopped.}
• When the Students told Professor Ganz that they would not change their purpose, he told them they would be responsible for the "consequences" of their decision, and later clarified that by consequences, he meant "fulfillment of course requirements."

The report concluded that this violated the Kennedy School's rules related to student free speech:

The [Harvard Kennedy School's and Harvard University's Statements on Rights and Responsibilities] are replete with declarations about the importance of freedom of speech and expression. For example, the HKS Statement provides:

• The Harvard Kennedy School is committed to advancing the public interest by training enlightened leaders and solving public problems through world class scholarship and active engagement with practitioners and decision makers. This commitment, we believe, includes training our students to lead effectively across lines of difference. That mission requires that our faculty, students, and staff be exposed to and understand a broad array of ideas, insights, and cultures. One crucial element involves attracting superlative people from diverse backgrounds and traditions who vary by their race and ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, physical and mental abilities, political philosophy, and intellectual focus. A second essential ingredient is the creation and maintenance of an atmosphere that welcomes new ideas—even unpopular and controversial ones—and encourages an effective and active exchange of views in an environment of mutual respect.
• The School will also develop a curriculum that deals with issues of diversity and encourages students and faculty to talk openly and effectively about difficult and highly charged issues. The School will provide professional support to faculty on how to teach these issues effectively. It will emphasize the powerful benefit of exchange of ideas. The School will seek to enlist students in efforts to make classrooms and classmates more welcoming of the unique ideas and insights that students from different backgrounds and perspectives bring….

The Course was meant to teach students how to organize others to participate in a topic close to their hearts; the Students' articulated purpose did just this, as they explained to Professor Ganz in their March 2, 2023 email. The Students, who view Israel as the home of the Jewish people, believe that Israel's right to exist as such should not be infringed upon; they also believe, however, that Israel must provide its Arab and Muslim citizens better access to and participation in the state's democratic process. Although Professor Ganz describes the Students' topic as a provocative one, their opinion is consistent with, for example, the editorial position of the New York Times. On April 1, 2023, the Editorial Board published an article, "The Fight for Israel's Democracy Continues," arguing that "Israel's identity as a Jewish and democratic state," has been threatened by Prime Minister Netanyahu's proposed overhaul of the judiciary, which could "relegate Arab citizens to a second-class status."

The First Amendment generally permits professors wide latitude to limit student speech to avoid controversy within the academic environment, as long as the restriction is limited to legitimate pedagogical concerns. For example, Professor Ganz could, perhaps, limit students from making hateful or inflammatory statements about Israel or Palestine that are unsupported by authoritative sources.

There is no pedagogical support, however, for Professor Ganz's directive that the Students find another way to articulate their purpose—namely by not describing Israel as a Jewish democracy. His view that the Students' topic was deliberately provocative is not widely supported by authoritative sources, and in fact, many authoritative sources share the Students' view. Likewise, without doubt, many authoritative voices disagree with the Students' position.

Reasonable people can differ as to whether the Jewish state of Israel is, or ever was, a democracy. To declare that the topic itself is unworthy of academic investigation, and that the Students' purpose was a deliberate provocation, however, is inconsistent with the principle of free speech. Professor Ganz acknowledges that students in the Course have sought to organize around politically charged issues in the past, including ones that others in the Course might find offensive. Yet, he sought to silence the speech of Jewish Israeli students about a topic that he viewed as illegitimate, no doubt influenced by the Arab and Muslim students and teaching fellows who complained. Professor Ganz's instruction that the Students change their topic is inconsistent with the free speech principles set forth in the Statements.

Here are my tentative thoughts, assuming the factual account in the Report is correct (note that the Report is 25 pages long, and I've abridged it dramatically above):

[1.] Ganz's behavior does seem narrow-minded, and not something one should expect at a leading institution of higher learning. He was suppressing the speech of one side of an important issue—the side that does support Israel's continued existence as a Jewish democracy—in order to avoid offense to the other side. That's not how serious, thoughtful discussion and learning in a graduate school (or an undergraduate, for that matter) should work.

[2.] I don't think this would necessarily be a "free speech" issue in the legal sense of the term, even adapting First Amendment principles from public universities to private ones (as Harvard apparently largely chooses to do). I don't think that students have a free speech right to have their projects approved by the instructor, or to present them to the class.

Students' rights in class assignments are necessarily sharply limited: The professor will inevitably need to evaluate their work based on its content and sometimes its viewpoint (the evidence required for a viewpoint in science class, for instance, that rejects well-established scientific theories would likely be much greater than for viewpoints that are consistent with those theories). And a professor may well require that assignments be consistent with the professor's views of what's pedagogically useful: A biology professor, for instance, wouldn't violate students' free speech rights by requiring them to write papers applying evolutionary theory to various questions, rather than rejecting evolutionary theory, if he thinks that such a requirement will help teach them important biological principles.

A professor's evaluation of an assignment, or requirements for an assignment, may well be too narrow-minded or too ideologically biased. But that's a matter of academic ethics and standards rather than free speech.

[3.] This having been said, it looks like the Kennedy School is endorsing a broader meaning of free speech for its students. I think it's entitled to do that; whatever academic freedom rights the professor has to state his own views in class, I don't think he has an academic freedom right to impose particular viewpoint-based restrictions on his students (even though, as noted above, I think that sometimes such restrictions are inevitable). To quote the Kennedy School Dean's endorsement of the report, which in turn quotes the School's Statements on Diversity and of Rights and Responsibilities:

The Harvard Kennedy School is committed to advancing the public interest by training enlightened leaders and solving public problems through world class scholarship and active engagement with practitioners and decision makers. This commitment, we believe, includes training our students to lead effectively across lines of difference. That mission requires that our faculty, students, and staff be exposed to and understand a broad array of ideas, insights, and cultures. One crucial element involves attracting superlative people from diverse backgrounds and traditions who vary by their race and ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, physical and mental abilities, political philosophy, and intellectual focus. A second essential ingredient is the creation and maintenance of an atmosphere that welcomes new ideas—even unpopular and controversial ones—and encourages an effective and active exchange of views in an environment of mutual respect.

But, wait—there's more, having to do with a finding (which strikes me as much more dangerous) that Ganz's actions were "discriminatory" or "harassing." This post is long enough already, though, so I save that for another post.