After nearly three decades of leading Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth stepped down as its executive director last year and was soon offered a position as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.  But as The Nation first reported this month, Roth's fellowship was revoked by the dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, Douglas Elmendorf.  According to news reports, which neither Dean Elmendorf nor the school’s spokesperson has denied, Dean Elmendorf vetoed the appointment because of Mr. Roth’s and Human Rights Watch’s criticism of human rights violations by the government of Israel.  

In 2020, the appointment of Valentina Azarova as a director at the University of Toronto’s Law School’s International Human Rights Program was also rescinded due to her “writings on Palestine.”  

Activists claim there’s a “Palestine exception to free speech” at North American universities, and donor-driven censorship is overriding academic freedom and integrity even at the most prestigious of institutions. 

Join us for a conversation with Ken Roth on these and other related topics, with panelists Denise Reaume, Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, Dania Majid, co-founder and president of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association