MESA calls on Penn to end cooperation with House ‘witch hunt’ investigation on campus anti-Semitism
The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) stated that Penn’s cooperation with Congress amounted to endangering academic freedom.
'Your failure to resist the committee’s improper demands and resolutely defend your faculty makes a mockery of your university’s avowed commitment to academic freedom,' MESA officials wrote.
The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) recently wrote an open letter to two high-ranking administrators at the University of Pennsylvania, criticizing the school’s decision to cooperate with an ongoing House of Representatives committee investigation regarding anti-Semitism .
The letter was co-authored by MESA President Aslı Ü. Bâli, a professor at Yale Law School, and Laurie Brand, the chair of MESA’s Committee on Academic Freedom and a USC professor emerita. The two alleged that University of Pennsylvania Interim President Larry Jameson and Provost John Jackson had failed to adequately protect academic freedom by choosing to cooperate with Congress.
“We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our grave concern about the apparent cooperation of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) with the witch-hunt which the Republican majority on the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce is conducting against several members of its faculty, as well as faculty and students at other institutions of higher education,” Bâli and Brand wrote.
“Your failure to resist the committee’s improper demands and resolutely defend your faculty makes a mockery of your university’s avowed commitment to academic freedom,” they continued.
Bâli and Brand’s criticisms centered around a letter from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, in which Committee Chair Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) asked Penn administrators to turn over a range of school documents to Congress. Foxx cited an ongoing House investigation related to concerns about anti-Semitism at Penn, noting that “Congress’ oversight powers are derived from the U.S. Constitution and have been affirmed repeatedly by the United States Supreme Court.”
Bâli and Brand encouraged Penn to immediately end all cooperation with the investigation, advising that it stand up against “governmental harassment and intimidation.”
“We therefore call on the University of Pennsylvania to immediately desist from any form of cooperation with the witch-hunt which the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has launched against members of its faculty,” they wrote.
“We further call on you to affirm your commitment to protect the academic freedom of your faculty, students and staff, and to vigorously defend them against all forms of governmental harassment and intimidation,” the two added. “Finally, we urge you to offer a public apology to the Penn faculty members whose information you chose to turn over to the committee.”
Campus Reform has reached out to the University of Pennsylvania and MESA for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.