Purging Peretz

The Martin Peretz issue, it seems, is not going away. At least, that’s what the Undergraduate Council would like us to believe. Most students and faculty have moved on, for better or worse, and most probably aren’t aware of the UC’s latest legislative achievement: a bill that “fully condemns” the University’s decision to accept donations in Peretz’s honor.
But the UC bill deserves our attention, if only because it underscores the absurdity of the past few weeks.
When Peretz came to campus last month to be honored for his service as a former Harvard professor, he was greeted by a mob of shouting students. In spite of their apparent outrage, the protestors – with a wink and a nod at the camera – seemed to take great pleasure in the man’s discomfort as they stalked him across Harvard Yard.
The whole scene was a little reminiscent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s invitation to speak at Columbia University three years ago — except in that case, the world’s leading holocaust-denier was allowed to hold forth and defend his views at length to a packed auditorium.
Nevertheless, after the crowd had reveled in their two minutes’ hate, Harvard accepted the donations in Peretz’s honor. Perhaps the University had decided, as Max Novendstern wrote at the time, that it was “strong enough and secure enough to embrace this sort of intellectual antagonism with a bit of fearlessness.”
Two weeks later, some students in the Social Studies lecture course indicated their dissatisfaction with this result by noisily walking out of lecture (much to the delight of the still-seated majority, I’ve heard, who just wanted to learn.)
Now, with all of the ardor of the Inquisition, the Undergraduate Council has called on President Faust to establish a “committee of concerned faculty, students, and administrators” to “investigate the decision” to honor Peretz.
(It is a shame that the administration didn’t show a little more “spine,” if you will, in defense of its decision at the time; a weak defense tends to invite a second attack.)
But what the UC reveals is the essential close-mindedness of those who fervently seek to “condemn” Peretz. They are unable or unwilling to see him as an intellectual whose ideas can and should be contested — only as a heretic to be purged.