On Thursday, Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf made a dramatic U-turn on his decision to veto a fellowship offered to former Human Rights Watch (HRW) executive director Kenneth Roth.
Responding to calls for his resignation by Harvard affiliates and pro-Palestinian student groups, Dean Elmendorf announced in a press release that he would extend a new invitation to Roth to serve as a fellow at the prestigious university’s Carr Center for Human Rights:
In the case of Mr. Roth, I now believe that I made an error in my decision not to appoint him as a Fellow at our Carr Center for Human Rights… The broader faculty input I have now sought and received has persuaded me that my decision was not the best one for the School. I have spoken now with a colleague at the Carr Center, and we will extend an offer to Mr. Roth to serve as a Fellow.”
The dean’s earlier decision was allegedly made over concerns about Ken Roth’s pathological obsession with demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish state.
According to a January 5 report in The Nation, entitled “Why the Godfather of Human Rights Is Not Welcome at Harvard,” Elmendorf mentioned HRW’s “anti-Israel bias” when he vetoed the proposal last summer to offer Roth a one-year position. “Roth’s tweets on Israel were of particular concern,” The Nation quoted his supporters at the Carr Center as saying.
An analysis of Roth’s Twitter account shows that, on average, he condemns Israel twice as often as Iran, Hezbollah, ISIS, Russia, Syria and the Taliban combined, and then some.
.@KenRoth former Executive Director at @hrw, claims he did not disproportionately target Israel over other nations.
Well, the proof says otherwise.
In fact, he and the "human rights" NGO have an obsession with #Israel.
Research: @elderofziyon pic.twitter.com/8ssv88xMXZ
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 11, 2023
Invoking classic antisemitic tropes about Jewish influence and control — and, crucially, without providing any solid evidence — The Nation conspiratorially suggested that Jewish and pro-Israel donors might have affected Elmendorf’s decision to refuse Roth’s appointment.
The Nation’s “godfather of human rights” doubled down on these accusations in a January 10 op-ed published by The Guardian. “Did Elmendorf consult with these donors or assume that they would object to my appointment? We don’t know,” Roth wrote. “But that is the only plausible explanation that I have heard for his decision. The Kennedy School spokesperson has not denied it.”
In the days that followed, Roth and his anti-Israel compatriots embarked on a relentless, media-abetted campaign against Harvard and Dean Elmendorf, with the former HRW head sending out more than 30 tweets criticizing the Kennedy School over the span of mere days.
Mainstream outlets like the Associated Press, Reuters, MSNBC, The Washington Post and The Guardian picked up on the story, claiming in a chorus-like fashion that HRW’s “criticism of Israel” led to his disinvitation. The Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, in a January 11 article likewise implied that “HRW’s commentary on Israel” was the sole reason for Roth being denied entry to the university.
On Thursday, Elmendorf explicitly rejected the media’s characterization of events, stressing that he had initially rescinded the fellowship following an “evaluation of [Roth’s] potential contributions to the School” and that he “was not influenced by donors.”
As HonestReporting previously outlined, the notion that Harvard wouldn’t associate with an anti-Israel fanatic is simply not true: in recent months, Kennedy School fellow Rami G. Khouri has continually attacked “apartheid Israel” and “racist Zionism” on Twitter.
However, the press has flat-out ignored the very real possibility that Roth’s lack of academic rigor, his repeated justification of antisemitism and terrorism, or the shocking controversies surrounding HRW’s donors, might have played a significant role in Harvard’s decision-making process.
As human rights lawyer Anne Herzberg posited on Twitter: “Bullying and temper tantrums pay off.”
Yet despite being offered a position by Dean Elmendorf, Roth continues to spread the baseless accusation that his “academic freedom” was violated because he “criticized Israel” — and the media seem all too eager to go along.
In a 2,000-word New York Times piece, which was published minutes after Harvard’s decision was announced, Roth called on Elmendorf to make public the deliberations about his appointment.
As @KenRoth is not an academic, he seems unaware that inputs and deliberations about academic appointments are not transparent by design. A university is not a government. Were Harvard to reveal these inputs, it would violate a fundamental code of the academy. https://t.co/U3dKDd62l6
— Martin Kramer (@Martin_Kramer) January 20, 2023
Kenneth Roth failed to secure a job at the world’s most prestigious university. Then, he led the media to believe that a nefarious Jewish conspiracy was somehow to blame. He got rewarded with a job.
Dean Elmendorf’s stunning reversal does not serve the cause of academic freedom, but rather rewards those who appropriate human rights rhetoric to demonize and delegitimize the world’s only Jewish state.
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