A week after<\/u> Hamas\u2019s October 7 massacre, by which time Israel\u2019s all-out assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had killed thousands of civilians, the online editors of the prestigious Harvard Law Review reached out to Rabea Eghbariah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two online chairs, as they are called, had decided to solicit an essay from a Palestinian scholar for the journal\u2019s website. Eghbariah was an obvious choice: A Palestinian doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School and human rights lawyer, he has tried landmark Palestinian civil rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eghbariah submitted a draft of a 2,000-word essay by early November. He argued that Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza should be evaluated within and beyond the \u201clegal framework\u201d of \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In line with the Law Review\u2019s standard procedures, the piece was solicited, commissioned, contracted, submitted, edited, fact checked, copy edited, and approved by the relevant editors. Yet it will never be published with the Harvard Law Review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following an intervention to delay the publication of Eghbariah\u2019s article by the Harvard Law Review president, the piece went through several committee processes before it was finally killed by an emergency meeting of editors. The essay, \u201cThe Ongoing Nakba,\u201d would have been the first from a Palestinian scholar published by the journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an email to Eghbariah and Harvard Law Review President Apsara Iyer, shared with The Intercept, online chair Tascha Shahriari-Parsa, one of the editors who commissioned the essay, called the move an \u201cunprecedented decision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLet’s not dance around it \u2014 this is also outright censorship. It is dangerous and alarming.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cAs Online Chairs, we have always had full discretion to solicit pieces for publication,” Shahriari-Parsa wrote, informing Eghbariah that his piece would not be published despite following the agreed upon procedure for blog essays. Shahriari-Parsa wrote that concerns had arisen about staffers being offended or harassed, but \u201ca deliberate decision to censor your voice out of fear of backlash would be contrary to the values of academic freedom and uplifting marginalized voices in legal academia that our institution stands for.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Shahriari-Parsa and the other top online editor, Sabrina Ochoa, told The Intercept that they had never seen a piece face this level of scrutiny at the Law Review. Shahriari-Parsa could find no previous examples of other pieces pulled from publication after going through the standard editorial process. Another editor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, echoed the view that Eghbariah\u2019s treatment is unprecedented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The anonymous editor said that, based on their research, Israeli scholars had been well represented in the pages of the magazine, but not Palestinians. The editor also said that they could find no previous examples, based on their research, of a publication-ready article being pulled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In one of his responses to the editors, Eghbariah wrote, \u201cThis is discrimination. Let’s not dance around it \u2014 this is also outright censorship. It is dangerous and alarming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to emails shared with The Intercept, as well as Shahriari-Parsa and Eghbariah\u2019s accounts, Iyer at first delayed the essay\u2019s publication over what she said were safety concerns and the desire to deliberate with editors. According to an email from Shahriari-Parsa to the author, however, Iyer also said in meetings that \u201cshe was personally unwilling to allow the piece to be published.\u201d (Iyer responded in the email chain with Eghbariah that there were \u201cnumerous inaccuracies\u201d in the rejection email, claiming the story had gone through the normal process and that the piece had been rejected based on the requested publication timeline.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following requests from over 30 editors, an emergency meeting of the entire journal body was called. After nearly six hours, the more than 100 editors voted anonymously on running the piece or not, with a strong majority voting against publication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLike every academic journal, the Harvard Law Review has editorial processes governing how it solicits, evaluates, and determines when and whether to publish a piece,\u201d the Harvard Law Review said in a statement. \u201cAn intrinsic feature of these internal processes is the confidentiality of our 104 editors\u2019 perspectives and deliberations. After a full body meeting and vote of the entire membership last week, a substantial majority voted not to proceed with publication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Entirely run by students \u2014 Iyer and Shahriari-Parsa, like Eghbariah, attend Harvard Law School \u2014 Harvard Law Review is a well-known launch pad for estimable legal and political careers. Barack Obama was the journal president during his time at the law school, and graduates regularly go on to clerkships with Supreme Court justices and jobs at top-tier law firms. With careers potentially on the line, the Harvard Law Review\u2019s decision on Eghbariah\u2019s essay came amid a crackdown in academia, in Ivy League schools and elsewhere, against pro-Palestinian speech following the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel\u2019s subsequent onslaught against the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can only speculate about the reasons of individual editors,\u201d said Ryan Doerfler, a law professor at Harvard who attended a meeting with Law Review staff about the Palestine article. \u201cWhat I can observe, though, is that the vote took place amidst a climate of suppression of pro-Palestinian advocacy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A second editor who asked for anonymity to speak freely about the process said that fear of backlash played a key role in their personal decision to vote “no” on Eghbariah\u2019s piece. The editor said they found “substantive flaws” in the piece that were exacerbated by a fear among editors that they would have their names and faces plastered on billboard trucks around campus accusing them of being Hamas supporters<\/a> \u2014 something that happened to pro-Palestine Harvard students<\/a> who signed a controversial open letter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The editor said substantive flaws are generally removed from pieces prior to publication, but they did not feel such edits would have been possible in this case because of the lack of agreement on underlying facts. “Reasonable scholarly debate couldn\u2019t happen in that context,” they said. “Partly because we\u2019re not at a point in time where that debate can happen without your face being put on a truck.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doerfler praised Eghbariah\u2019s draft amid that climate of fear. \u201cIt is a forceful piece of legal scholarship,\u201d he said, \u201cand it articulates a position that takes real courage to put forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\u201cThreatens Academic Freedom\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
For some of the more than 100 editors at the Harvard Law Review, the delay and subsequent killing of Eghbariah\u2019s piece did not hew to the usual process. In a forthcoming public statement viewed by The Intercept, 20 Harvard Law Review editors objected to the move to squash the essay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are unaware of any other solicited piece that has been revoked by the Law Review in this way,\u201d the editors wrote. \u201cThis unprecedented decision threatens academic freedom and perpetuates the suppression of Palestinian voices. We dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
In an interview, the first anonymous Law Review editor told me that they have evaluated \u201chundreds of submissions\u201d for the journal\u2019s blog and that Eghbariah\u2019s essay is \u201cmore than just \u2018good enough.\u2019\u201d Both this editor and Shahriari-Parsa said that they believe the primary reason for the \u201cno\u201d votes was fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\u201cEditors expressed that they supported the piece and wanted to uplift marginalized voices,\u201d the second editor said, \u201cbut were voting against publishing it because they were afraid of the consequences and had worked too hard to now risk their futures. Some also expressed concerns that the blowback to the piece would discriminatorily target editors of color more than others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Students<\/a>, writers<\/a>, and artists<\/a> speaking out for Palestinian liberation are facing extreme levels of censorship and censure \u2014 especially in academia. Columbia University and Brandeis University have suspended the campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace on spurious grounds of violating campus protest policy and risks to campus safety. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered public universities to shut down chapters<\/a> of the groups. Harvard, too, has faced pressure from major donors to crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. Students have been doxxed<\/a> and harassed <\/a>for writing a letter<\/a> in the aftermath of October 7 saying Israel\u2019s longtime oppression of Palestinians was \u201centirely responsible for all unfolding violence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Law Review specifically had just gone through an incident in which one of its members was doxxed<\/a> after participating as a safety marshal at a \u2018die in\u2019 at the Harvard Business School campus organized by student activists,\u201d said Doerfler, the professor. Doerfler, who had been brought into a meeting with Iyer, Eghbariah, and two Review editors on November 14 to discuss Eghbariah\u2019s essay, said the editor who participated in the \u201cdie in\u201d protest has been publicly criticized by a major university donor \u201cas part of his broader criticism of the University\u2019s handling of the crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is exactly the kind of work that good international legal scholarship should do.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nIn the essay, Eghbariah argues that the atrocities in Gaza amount to genocide<\/a>; he considers the frames used to name Israeli policies in Palestine more broadly and calls for a distinctive legal framework for Palestine. According to Eghbariah, just as \u201cthe South African experience brought \u2018Apartheid\u2019 into the global and legal lexicon,\u201d the distinctive nature of the domination Palestinians have faced should demand a new category of crime: \u201cNakba,\u201d the word Palestinians use to describe their dispossession<\/a> and expulsion<\/a> at the founding of the state of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yale Law School professor Asli B\u00e2li, an international and human rights law expert who said she has never met or worked with Eghbariah but was sent his essay and aware of the Harvard Law Review situation, said in an interview that the article constituted an \u201cexcellent piece of legal scholarship.” She noted that the essay\u2019s arguments are no doubt contested, as is the nature of legal argumentation. “This is exactly the kind of work that good international legal scholarship should do,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
B\u00e2li told The Intercept that in her \u201cquarter century\u201d of experience in legal scholarship, she has never heard of a contracted article, which has gone through the editorial process, being pulled before publication. She said, \u201cI\u2019ve never heard of anything of this sort.\u201d<\/p>\n
The post Harvard Law Review Editors Vote to Kill Article About Genocide in Gaza<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The article on the Gaza war and the Nakba was commissioned, edited, fact checked, and prepared for publication \u2014 but was then blocked amid a climate of fear.<\/p>\n
The post Harvard Law Review Editors Vote to Kill Article About Genocide in Gaza<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1764,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,340],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1764"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1345591"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1347504,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345591\/revisions\/1347504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1345591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1345591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1345591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}