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The director of a health and human rights center at Harvard University has been dismissed from her role following criticism from the Trump administration, school officials, Republican politicians, and students. Critics said the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights under Mary Bassett slanted its programming too heavily against Israel.
Bassett’s tenure as director ended on Jan. 9, but she will remain in her role as a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The center “will focus on children’s health,” Dean Andrea Baccarelli told the school of public health. The think tank currently hosts a “Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights,” but no similar initiative focused on Israel.
“Over the past years, FXB has worked on a wide range of programs within the context of human rights, extending across varied projects, including those related to oppression, poverty, and stigma around the world,” he stated, according to The Crimson.
“We believe we can accomplish more, and have greater impact, if we go deeper in a primary area of focus,” he told the student newspaper.
The center came under criticism from the Trump administration for allegedly promoting antisemitism and not confronting anti-Israel bias, according to a letter sent to the university. Last October, former Harvard President Larry Summers accused the center of “fail[ing] to maintain even the most minimal intellectual and moral standards.”
Dean Baccarrelli did not respond to two emails and a voicemail in the past month, asking for more information about the decision to focus on pediatrics. The College Fix also asked about the reason and context surrounding Bassett’s dismissal.
Bassett also did not respond to emails and voicemails in the same time period. The Fix asked about her thoughts on the future of the center.
However, a medical reform group that is critical of politics in healthcare said it believes Harvard made the right decision.
“Harvard’s motto is veritas: truth,” Ian Kingsbury, research director for Do No Harm, told The Fix via an emailed statement.
“That doesn’t require professors to remain politically neutral, but it does require that professors are not faithfully parroting Hamas talking points,” Kingsbury said. “The Center, like Harvard broadly, seems to have lost sight of veritas.’’
He said it is one thing “for students to be offended” but it “isn’t acceptable to only allow some students to encounter ideas they find objectionable.”
According to The Crimson, students raised concerns about missing context in various presentations by the center’s presenters, including Israel’s attacks on hospitals in the Gaza strip. Israel contends that Hamas uses hospitals and other civilian facilities to stage its weapons.
Do No Harm said there is a contradiction in how Ivy League campuses address perceived violence.
“We have reached a point on Ivy League campuses where correctly identifying someone’s gender is ‘violence,’ but inciting actual violence against Jews is a common practice,” Kingsbury said.
The Fix reached out to several groups generally considered more sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian view. Amnesty International declined to comment when contacted by The Fix. Front Line Defenders did not respond to an emailed inquiry in the past week seeking comment on the situation.
Some faculty and students have spoken out against the dismissal of Bassett, including protesting at the school against the decision.
Bassett’s supporters also are circulating a petition demanding her reinstatement. As of mid-December, the petition reportedly had more than 1,000 signatures from a variety of universities, The Crimson reported.
“We call upon the School’s leadership to immediately reinstate Dr. Mary Bassett as the Director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights,” the petition states.
Her backers also said this is part of an ongoing problem at Harvard concerning research into controversial political topics, especially by minorities.
“This targeted dismissal follows a series of politically motivated terminations of leaders at Harvard’s scholarly centers that include programming on Palestine,” the letter states. “This decision by Dean Baccarelli also reflects a deeper, troubling pattern of targeted erasure–especially of Black women whose scholarship confronts structural violence and insists on the dignity of marginalized peoples, including Palestinians.”
