Opinion: What Black History Month means on campus after Harvard president’s ouster

Editor’s note: Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy at Harvard University. “Freedom to Learn” Movement And the co-sponsors are Some of my best friends are Podcast. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.read more opinions On CNN.

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Black History Month, which begins this week, is a timely reminder to Americans that we cannot honestly teach our history without understanding the struggles and triumphs of Black people.

Removing race and racism from the American story leaves little to be understood about this country. How to elect a president. The civil rights enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment give birthright citizenship to previously excluded Asian immigrants and grant marriage equality to same-sex couples. This country’s wealth was accumulated over generations during 350 years of slavery and racism. and the outsized cultural visibility of African American creative talent on the world stage.

Because black patriots have kept the torch of American democracy burning for everyone, and for centuries, they have supported the American democratic movement, including some people, especially some top Republicans, Because black people continue to be overrepresented in the very movements of right-wing leaders. – Desperate to destroy the zeal to pass voter suppression laws and efforts to diminish free speech and assembly rights.

Nowhere are these attacks more prevalent than on college campuses today. Like me, many scholars who teach about America’s history of race and racism are unfairly blamed for the rise of anti-Semitism on campuses and creating racial divisions in the country. has been unfairly criticized as This has had the undesirable effect of making us a target of some of the most powerful people in this country, including Republican politicians, conservative activists, and billionaire donors.

Last week, about 100 faculty members at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, rallied to protest what they called an “anti-democratic” attack on diversity, academic freedom, and free speech. Faculty members at private universities across the country are currently facing a similar predicament. The same goes for many teachers, librarians, and academics at public universities who have been censored, harassed, physically intimidated, and fired over the past year for doing their jobs.

As these dangerous attacks reach private universities, many academics are preparing for the worst. I count myself among them. Last year, for the first time in my 25-year career as an academic historian, my teachings were exposed by a powerful politician for provoking hatred.

When Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx held a Congressional hearing on anti-Semitism on campus on Dec. 5, she said that the targeted a class I taught as a “prime example” of “species-based ideology.” After October 7th. ” Fox also cited a global health seminar on “scientific racism and anti-racism” and a seminar on “social and racial justice” as examples of “systemic anti-Semitism and hatred” on campus. He listed two initiatives at Harvard Divinity School.

And on January 2, just hours after Claudine Gay announced her resignation under pressure, Foxx announced that “post-secondary education” has been “taken over by political activists, woke faculty and staff.” The congressman said in a statement that he is committed to continuing the Congressional investigation into Harvard University. Party managers. ”

If by “woke” Fox means teaching the truth about American history, then I’m as guilty as charged. There are few aspects of America’s past that are not influenced by conscientious black people and their resistance to systemic racism and illiberal democracy.

The accusation against me of promoting a “race-based ideology” that promotes anti-Semitic views is particularly ridiculous. Because the class I teach on the history of anti-Jewish hatred and discrimination shows how blacks and Jews have a common enemy: neo-Nazis and replacement theorists. and white domestic terrorists in the United States. Members of these same groups frequently express support for the current leader of the Republican Party, former President Donald Trump, who uses language similar to the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler.

Right-wing officeholders targeting academics is the latest front in a three-year political war over education. This political war began with President Trump’s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training in federal agencies and spilled over into many states that criminalized books and book sales. Curriculum on racism, sexism, and sexuality in public elementary and junior high schools. Florida recently banned sociology from the core curriculum of the nation’s largest public university system, which enrolls 430,000 students, because it had been “hijacked by left-wing activists,” according to the state Board of Education.

Fox and his politicians believe that what is happening in my classroom and the classrooms of many other academics across the country is part of a woke conspiracy designed to indoctrinate white Americans to hate themselves and their country. They want people to believe they are part of it. Enemies of racial progress and democracy are coming to grips with reality: Those of us who teach the truth about race and the history of racism are the real racists and anti-Semites in America. He wants the people to believe that he is a man of principle.

The situation at Harvard is made even more dire by the university’s failure to adequately counter widespread political attacks. In his first university statement as interim president, Alan Garber broadly affirmed the university’s commitment to “free inquiry and expression in a climate of inclusivity and mutual respect.” But as the school year began in January, university leaders issued a letter to faculty who teach about racism and staff who work in various roles in the field of DEI, assuring them that we could do our jobs safely. There was no statement made by.

Stylized guarantees about academic freedom were common even before a gay man became president, and anti-Semitism against anyone who teaches about racism or colonialism, or dares to talk about the history of Israel’s occupation of Gaza. It was certainly issued frequently even before October 7, when it became a weapon. To be clear, I’m not just talking about black faculty, I’m talking about everyone. Just last week, on the first day of the spring semester, President Garber appointed prolific and acclaimed Jewish historian Derek J. Pensler as co-chair of Harvard’s reconstituted President’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. He was criticized for his appointment. .

DEI has been criticized by its funder, billionaire Bill Ackman, who says Pensler is soft on anti-Semitism. The “root cause” of Harvard University’s anti-Semitism allegations He is also a prominent supporter of Fox’s congressional investigations. Another vocal critic of Pensler was former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers, who was also an opponent of gays. he wrote to x (formerly Twitter) claimed that Pensler’s views were disqualified because they invoked “concepts of settler colonialism in analyzing Israel” and labeled Israel an “apartheid state.”

The tragedy is that the academics most committed to learning from the past – the ones who spend their entire careers delving into the abyss of oppression – to teach the concept of “never again” and how it applies to all people. They are scholars who have dedicated themselves to studying the The least protected at the moment. Black faculty and staff feel particularly vulnerable. As a friend of mine, a black faculty member at a community college in Florida, recently told me, “I’m at the opposite end of the educational spectrum from Harvard, but the reality is in many ways the same.”

Some Black colleagues on my campus have told me that they are concerned about the risks to their careers and reputations of “teaching while Black” in this situation. Some Black alumni also weighed in on Gay’s sudden death as Harvard’s first Black female president, especially given that many believed her work on DEI was a politically damaging undertaking. , some are considering whether it’s safe to speak out. “People are afraid,” one graduate told me. “If it can happen to her, it can happen to any of us.”

Shame on Harvard if America’s oldest, wealthiest, and most powerful university fails to protect its citizens and resist political efforts that interfere with unvarnished truth-telling and academic freedom. As academic institutions, we must not succumb to these attacks on higher education, but rather be at the forefront of the resistance.

Silence at a time like this is a failure of leadership. Harvard University, whose motto is “Veritas” (Truth), encourages all of us who are on the front lines of these false attacks to teach and practice the very values ​​that Harvard claims to uphold. We have a duty to defend the universities that are doing so.

And for those of us who believe that an education that is rigorous, fair, inclusive, and above all honest is the only education that has value in a multiracial democracy, we must courageously stand together and share the truth. We must continue to teach.