[Salon] Protesting Notre Dame’s Cancellation of a Palestine Keynote

https://www.juancole.com/2025/04/protesting-cancellation-palestine.html

Protesting Notre Dame’s Cancellation of a Palestine Keynote

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association | –

Letter to the University of Notre Dame expressing concern over the cancellation of a keynote lecture by Professor Eman Abdelhadi

Mary E. Gallagher 

Dean, Keough School of Global Affairs

University of Notre Dame

mgalla33@nd.edu

Dear Dean Gallagher:

We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to condemn the last-minute cancellation of a keynote lecture that was to be given by Professor Eman Abdelhadi of the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. The cancellation of Professor Abdelhadi’s lecture, purportedly on grounds of security, constitutes a blatant act of censorship and a violation of the principles of academic freedom. 

Founded in 1966, MESA promotes scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. As the preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the prestigious International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 2,800 members worldwide.  Our organization is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of _expression_ both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and outside of North America.

Professor Abdelhadi had been invited to give the keynote address at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies’ annual Student Peace Conference, scheduled for 11-12 April 2025. However, on 5 April 2025, you sent a message to Professor Abdelhadi claiming that the Keough School of Global Affairs, which houses the Kroc Institute, had “recently learned of your keynote speech at their student conference next weekend” and that “[t]he University of Notre Dame requires that all events or lectures relating to Israel/Palestine have ND Police security and planning.” Claiming that “we cannot provide security at short notice…we respectfully request that you do not participate in the conference.”

We note that Professor Abdelhadi, who in 2023-2024 was a visiting fellow at the university’s Institute for Advanced Study, had been invited to give this lecture in January 2025, and the students who organized the conference worked with Kroc Institute administrators to ensure all university event regulations were met. Concerns about Professor Abdelhadi’s participation surfaced only after it became known that she intended to discuss pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses, which apparently led you and Provost John Greevy to rescind her invitation. We also note that after cancelling her appearance you made no effort to work with any of the parties involved to find an alternative date or forum for Professor Abdelhadi to speak at your university. 

It seems clear that you decided to cancel Professor Abdelhadi’s lecture solely because she planned to engage with the question of Palestine in her lecture. Your action thus amounts to an egregious infringement of academic freedom and the right to free speech. It also contravenes your university’s mission statement, which declares that the University of Notre Dame “insists upon academic freedom that makes open discussion and inquiry possible” and that “[t]he intellectual interchange essential to a university requires, and is enriched by, the presence and voices of diverse scholars and students.”

We therefore call on you to issue an apology to Professor Abdelhadi and to work with the organizers of the Kroc School’s 2025 Student Peace Conference to enable her to deliver her keynote address as soon as possible. We further call upon you and your university’s leadership to adopt and implement a security policy that does not target one specific issue, no matter how controversial some may find it. Finally, we urge you to publicly and vigorously reaffirm the university’s commitment to academic freedom and freedom of speech at the University of Notre Dame.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Aslı Ü. Bâli 

MESA President

Professor, Yale Law School

Laurie A. Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California

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