Harvard cancels Paulin lecture over poet’s anti-Israel views

January 18, 2006 Paulin had planned to speak about his new book, The Invasion Handbook, "the first installment of an epic poem about World War II", The Harvard Crimson reports. However, the reading was cancelled "when it became fully clear to us that Mr. Paulin’s visit was likely to produce undue consternation and divisiveness," English Department Chair Lawrence Buell told The Crimson.

The controversy stems from the strong opinions Paulin expressed in an interview with Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram last April. "I never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all," Paulin told the newspaper, and proceeded to call the state "an historical obscenity". He expressed his contempt for the "Hampstead liberal Zionists", and said of the American-born settlers in the occupied territories that "they should be shot dead. I think they are Nazis, racists. I have nothing but hatred for them." Moreover, in a poem he published in The Observer last year, Paulin describes "another little Palestinian boy (-) gunned down by the Zionist SS."

According to the Belfast Telegraph, some days after the interview was published in Al-Ahram Paulin said that his views had been "distorted", "but he did not explain how." The poet told the Belfast newspaper he was "a lifelong opponent of anti-semitism" and that he did "not support attacks on Israeli citizens under any circumstances."

Whereas Paulin is well-known in Britain as a controversial and outspoken critic, as well as an acclaimed poet, apparently the English department of Harvard was unaware of his views. "Mr. Paulin was invited solely on the basis of his accomplishment and standing as a major Irish poet," Buell stated, claiming the invitation had been made "in ignorance of the views that he has expressed."

However, when Harvard lecturer Rita Goldberg discovered that Paulin was scheduled to give the Morris Gray Lecture, she launched a protest action. She asked her students not to attend the lecture, and encouraged them to send protest emails to the English department. "An audience is oxygen to a poet, and the most effective way of showing your feelings is to deprive him of air," Goldberg said. More than 100 people responded, condemning Paulin’s views as "hate speech". University President Lawrence H. Summers, too, privately said that he was "horrified" by the invitation. The Wall Street Journal subsequently published an article criticizing Paulin.

Although the English department at first was concerned about curbing Paulin's freedom of speech, the lecture was cancelled "by mutual consent of the poet and the English department", Buell states. "Harvard has no obligation to encourage hate speech," an editorial of the Harvard Crimson ran, thereby voicing the opinion of many that freedom of speech does not extend to "hate speech" at Harvard. "It is unfortunate that the banner of free speech has been raised in Paulin’s defense; that standard is being sullied by his name," opined the Crimson staff.

Nevertheless, Buell felt compelled to write a letter to the paper stating that "some members of the department did in fact strongly object to the decision not to hold the reading", and various other protests have been published, claiming that "the censorship of Tom Paulin is an outrage", and that the university "erroneously conflates anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism". One group of students cited Paulins repeated criticism of the literary establishment’s tolerance of T. S. Eliot’s anti-semitism, and concluded that "Paulin should have come here to speak. We disagree strongly with his views, yet the best way to combat them is through constructive and mature debate."

Jim Shapiro, a colleague of Paulin's at Colombia University, comdemned Harvard’s action as "disastrous", reports The Guardian. "I say this as somebody who is a Zionist," he told the paper, emphasizing that Paulin is no anti-semite. "The idea of rescinding an invitation because someone has not passed a political litmus test establishes a very dangerous precedent."