Harvard reinvites Paulin for prestigious lecture

January 18, 2006 "Free speech was a principle that needed upholding here," English professor Peter Sacks told the Boston Globe. "This was a clear reaffirmation that the department stood strongly by the First Amendment." The Globe reveals that "after an intense two-hour discussion Tuesday evening English professors voted overwhelmingly to ask Paulin again to deliver Harvard’s prestigious Morris Gray Lecture, and thereby defend the department against charges it had damaged free speech at Harvard." Their discussion, Harvard poet Jorie Graham said, was marked by "profound, acute scrutiny and self-scrutiny." English Department Chair Lawrence Buell declared the decision was taken out of "widespread concern and regret for the fact that the decision not to hold the event could easily be seen, and indeed has been seen - both within Harvard and beyond - as an unjustified breach of the principle of free speech within the academy," The Guardian reports. Buell delivered a statement yesterday saying that "while we in no sense endorse the extreme statements by Mr. Paulin that have occasioned concern in the Harvard community, we support a university environment that is host to a diversity of views."

The cancellation of Paulin’s lecture drew press coverage world-wide, and led to widespread concerns about the principle of free speech at Harvard. The English department’s new decision may have implications for Vermont University which, The Guardian writes, also cancelled an invitation to Mr Paulin after Harvard did so last week.


November 18, 2002:
{id="273" title="Harvard cancels Paulin lecture over poet’s anti-Israel views"}