A propos this, philosopher Mathias Risse, who is Director of the Carr Center, kindly shared the statement he has circulated locally:
Subject: Carr Center // Ken Roth
Dear friends of the Carr Center at HKS and from around Harvard --
A Happy New Year to you! You might have seen the article in the Nation that was published a few days ago and reports on the denial of a Carr Center fellowship to Ken Roth (owing to allegedly biased reporting on Israel by Human Rights Watch, the organization he led for almost 30 years). As of now, this article pretty much dominates the Harvard-related news at the national and international level: it has been taken up by multiple other outlets and unsurprisingly has also resonated quite a bit on social media, and we can expect more to come. Quite a number of people from around the university and beyond have written to share their thoughts on this, also making clear that this is a matter of common concern. I myself did not speak to the reporter (Michael Manning) about this particular decision though I had some exchanges with him about related matters; the dean’s office wanted this to be handled by its communications office. It is, however, important that everyone connected to the Carr Center knows what happened here, and where I, as the director of the center, stand on this.
In summer 2022, we tried to recruit Ken Roth as a fellow because he is one of the most distinguished human rights leaders of our time and one of the most visible faces of the human rights movement. He had not approached us; we took the initiative, after a few conversations came to an understanding with him on what such a fellowship would involve, and then submitted this proposal to the dean’s office for approval (not expecting any difficulties). I continue to stand by this initiative, without any hesitation and qualification. Roth has courageously and over several decades stood up for human rights everywhere in the world. He has built Human Rights Watch into a trusted organization of formidable size. Their reporting sets standards in the field, and political scientists who study these matters (such as our very own Kathryn Sikkink) confirm the fairmindedness of their reporting. Ken is articulate and really quite brilliant, and never shies away from debate. He would have been accessible to the HKS community to discuss all controversial issues, including their assessment of the human rights situation in Israel.
While the dean has been a strong supporter of the Carr Center’s work in many ways over the years (and for this I personally will always be grateful), his decision to reject our request to appoint Ken as a fellow (and to set aside all our arguments making the case for this appointment, over several rounds of discussion) was a profoundly sad moment for me personally. My subsequent conversation with Ken Roth to explain this decision to the extent I could was one of the lowest moments in my professional life. The article in the Nation captures the events accurately and completely, as far as the background to this attempted appointment is concerned.
Being a human rights center at Harvard, and specifically at the Harvard Kennedy School, puts us in a position to create much visibility for human rights causes, to explore these issues in the neighborhood of a lot of other endeavors, and to connect to a lot of people who are in a position to create change in the world. At the same time, we are thereby embedded into a complex institution that comes with its own dynamics that sometimes overwhelm what we try to achieve.
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