Inside Higher Ed: Desmond Tutu, Persona Non Grata

(Courtesy of Rebecca Glasscock)

Desmond Tutu, Persona Non Grata
Inside Higher Ed

Last week’s visit by Iran’s president to Columbia University symbolized to many the openness of American higher education to hearing controversial ideas and individuals. An incident coming to light at the University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota, illustrates that some speakers are denied campus platforms. In this case, the would-be speaker isn’t a Holocaust denier. Nor does he run a government that routinely denies basic civil rights to scholars, journalists or gay people.

The speaker barred at St. Thomas won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won the prize for his nonviolent opposition to South Africa’s apartheid regime, was deemed unworthy of appearing at St. Thomas because of comments he made criticizing Israel — comments the university says were “hurtful” to some Jewish people. Further, the university demoted the director of the program that invited Tutu after she wrote a letter to him and others complaining about the revocation of the invitation. (She retains a tenured faculty job.)

While the incident happened several months ago, it has only just become public, when it was reported by City Pages, the alt-weekly in Minneapolis-St. Paul. The revoked invitation has some faculty members at the university seething.

“There isn’t any academic freedom here when this happens,” said Marv Davidov, an adjunct faculty member who has taught courses about nonviolence for 15 years at the university. “This is cowardice.”

Tutu was invited to the university through a program called PeaceJam International, which organizes conferences for high school students on issues related to peace. While the program is not officially a part of St. Thomas, many faculty members —- especially in the Justice and Peace Studies Program — are involved in it, and major speakers sometimes appear on the campus, reaching those at the university in addition to the high schoolers in the program. Tutu, invited through the Justice and Peace Studies Program, was to talk at St. Thomas about issues of peace and nonviolence and there was no expectation that his talk would focus on the Middle East.

Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations at St. Thomas, said that when administrators were informed of the invitation, they did some research about Tutu, and found that some of his comments had been controversial. Then, the university consulted with some Jewish leaders, and concluded that Tutu had made remarks that had been “hurtful” to Jewish leaders.

“We had heard some criticism of him in the past that he had said things some people judged to be anti-Semitic. We talked to the Jewish Community Relations Council. We know a number of other people in the Jewish community, and they said that some of the things he said had been hurtful and there was a feeling — and this isn’t among all Jews — that he had said things that were hurtful to them,” Hennes said.

“We never made a judgment that he is anti-Semitic. We have not made that judgment. We have only been told by members of the Jewish community that his words have been hurtful,” Hennes said. He stressed that the university sought out the views of Jewish leaders, and that the revocation of the invitation was a university decision, and not one that was sought by anyone outside St. Thomas.

“We make decisions every day on a regular basis on whether to invite people to campus,” Hennes said. Asked if disqualifying people from speaking for being “hurtful” might block many speakers, he said, “That’s not the case at all. We have speakers on a wide variety of issues and interests, including sensitive issues within the Catholic church.” (St. Thomas is a Roman Catholic university.)

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