A clarification by five signatories of the open letter
Why we as linguists support the Block the Ban at MIT petition
We represent our own views, which the other 35 signatories of the letter, circulated originally on 23 December 2024, may or may not share.
In the days that have passed since the open letter was circulated, there have been various questions about the information it contains that we wish to comment on:
Everything in the open letter is based on correspondence between Michel DeGraff and members of the Linguistics Department between 5 December 2023, when DeGraff first submitted his Special Topics course for approval, and 19 July 2024, when the Department finally rejected it. That correspondence is in the public domain, through links in DeGraff's article published in The Tech on Aug 22, 2024 and can be accessed by all (here and here).
The open letter takes under consideration only statements that were confirmed by the Linguistics faculty. For example, we do not refer to the content of the 'heated disagreement' between Fox and DeGraff, on which we have only one perspective. That there was a disagreement, however, is mentioned by both sides.
We urge anyone interested to please look at the entire correspondence [see the two links above]. You will see that the Linguistics Department dragged Michel DeGraff through the course approval process for 7 months, initially expressing reservations about its content based on the title alone, and that their reasons for rejecting it seem to have emerged impromptu over time. You will learn that some months into this process (on 6 March 2024), the Department voted to adopt a new course approval procedure, and followed that by appointing (on 8 May 2024) an ad hoc review committee which rejected DeGraff's proposal. Apparently never before has MIT Linguistics used an ad hoc course review committee nor rejected a Special Topics course proposal.
No pre-existing course approval criteria are available in the correspondence record. The justifications for refusing DeGraff's course seem, to say the least, unprecedented; some include challenges to DeGraff's knowledge of his own research topics and even of basic linguistics.
One member of the ad hoc committee explained the unprecedented review as a need to exercise caution in the current political climate. While we understand the concern, it is neither an academic nor a scholarly reason for course approval. The Palestine Exception is repression, whether enacted by a hostile authority or by colleagues seeking to defend themselves from one.
After the course was finally rejected on 19 July 2024, there was an appeal and negotiations with both the Department and the Dean which led to additional punitive actions against DeGraff. Since these are separate from the course approval process, the open letter did not address them.
We stand by the conclusion in the open letter that the rejection of DeGraff's course is an example of the Palestine Exception. We once again urge our colleagues to sign and share the Block the Ban Petition and to oppose the Palestine Exception wherever they encounter it.
Hagit Borer, Queen Mary University of London
David Heap, University of Western Ontario
Máire Noonan, Université de Montréal
Janet Randall, Northeastern University
Ur Shlonsky, Université de Genève
