Amid backlash, Harvard University defended its decision to award an honorary degree to an anti-Israel professor who called for boycotting the Jewish state, while distancing itself from the professor’s beliefs.
At its commencement ceremony last week, the Ivy League awarded an honorary degree to Elaine H. Kim, professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, and an endorser of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. She also endorsed the boycott of the U.S. tour of the Tel Aviv-based Batsheva Dance Company in early 2025.
“There have been questions this year about the views of one honorary degree recipient who seems to have supported academic boycotts,” Harvard said in a statement. “In granting an honorary degree, Harvard University is not endorsing the political views of the recipient.”
“Harvard University’s position on academic boycotts is clear,” the statement continued, “The university strongly opposes academic boycotts and has stated so publicly. As President Garber and his predecessors have said, any suggestion of targeting or boycotting a particular group because of disagreements over the policies pursued by their governments is antithetical to what we stand for as a university. The university strongly reaffirms that core principle.”
“If Harvard cares about international students, why give a highly selective honorary degree to someone who wants to ban Israelis?” wrote Harvard alumnus Shabbos Kestenbaum. Kestenbaum sued the school over its handling of antisemitism on campus.
“Israel is an American ally,” he wrote. “Harvard is not.”
