A Statement from W3D Leadership: Sharing information on an ongoing discussion around Ken Roth and Human Rights Watch at HKS

Dear W3D Members,

We hope you are well in the new year! 

We wanted to share some information with you about a discussion that is ongoing at HKS, as it is reverberating across the wider Harvard community:

On January 5, the Nation and the Guardian published articles questioning why the Harvard Kennedy School, under the leadership of Dean Doug Elmendorf, refused to approve a fellowship offered by the Carr Center for Human Rights to Ken Roth, who has served as the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch for 30 years. 

As Anthony D. Romero, the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote on January 6: “Few people have done more to advance human rights than Kenneth Roth. If Harvard’s decision was based on HRW’s advocacy under Ken’s leadership, this is profoundly troubling – from both a human rights and an academic freedom standpoint. Scholars and fellows have to be judged on their merits, not whether they please powerful political interests. We urge Harvard to reverse its decision.”

Ken Roth has served as a leading global human rights advocate for decades. As PEN America wrote on January 5, “Over his decades-long career as a leading global human rights advocate Ken Roth has excoriated many dozens of governments for their abuses; this goes with the territory of building and leading a human rights organization credited with having advanced respect for rights and freedoms the world over. It is the role of a human rights defender to call out governments harshly, to take positions that are unpopular in certain quarters and to antagonize those who hold power and authority. There is no suggestion that Roth’s criticisms of Israel are in any way based on racial or religious animus. Withholding 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.” 

On January 9, Larry Summers, a previous Harvard president, criticized the administration’s decision not to allow HKS’s Carr Center to invite Roth as a visiting fellow, “Preventing a human rights center from having the fmr head of a leading human rights center as a visiting fellow on grounds of the person's views/modes of expression is not consistent w/profound commitment to intellectual diversity that should be a bedrock value in universities.”

More recently, the Boston Globe, the Harvard Crimson, WBUR, and Democracy Now! have published their own pieces, adding context to the situation.

Meanwhile, some people and groups have provided statements in support of the Dean's decision. Their statements can be found in the articles cited above.  

In recent days, an open letter has been spreading across the Harvard community. If this letter resonates with you, feel free to add your name to it. 

We are committed to diverse discourse at Harvard. We are here for everyone as a resource, whether you would like to be pointed to further resources on allyship or whether you simply need a space to process and reflect. If you have insights to share with the Board, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Your W3D Board Members