On September 26, 2024, Wake Forest University canceled a previously approved guest lecture by Rabab Abdulhadi, a professor and founding director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies Program at San Francisco State University. The cancellation came after a group of students created a petition calling for the university to cancel the event.
The lecture, entitled “One Year Since al-Aqsa Flood: Reflections on a Year of Genocide and Resistance,” was scheduled for October 7. It was co-sponsored by five departments—Wake Forest University’s Humanities Institute, the department of history, the department of politics & international affairs, the Middle East South Asian studies program and the National Endowment for the Humanities–and intended to provide “expert insight on critical global issues, just as similar discussions have been held in response to other world events, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
On September 22, 2024, a group of students created an online petition calling on the university to cancel Abdulhadi’s lecture. The petition claimed that the lecture would create a “hostile environment,” and accused Abdulhadi of being a “self-proclaimed Hamas sympathizer.” The petition gained about 8,000 signatures.
Nearly a week later, University President Susan Wente and Provost Michele Gillespie sent a university-wide email that the event was cancelled, citing that they made a “conscious decision not to host events on [October 7] that are inherently contentious and stand to stoke division in [the] campus community.” The same message notified the campus that two memorial events, “Community Reflection” and an “Interfaith Prayers for Peace,” were still taking place. The student organizer of the online petition also noted that a memorial event sponsored by the Wake Forest Chabad and Hillel organizations would also take place.
Scholars at Risk is concerned about the cancellation of a previously approved on-campus, academic event, apparently in response to public pressure. Higher education leaders should respect academic freedom by refraining from restrictions on academic activity. Attempts to limit academic discussion and exchange undermine academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and democratic society generally.
Sources:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/09/30/wake-forest-cancels-oct-7-lecture
https://www.wfdd.org/story/wake-forest-university-cancels-inherently-contentious-palestinian-activist-lecture-oct-7
https://mesana.org/advocacy/committee-on-academic-freedom/2024/09/30/letter-to-wake-forest-university-concerning-the-cancellation-of-a-lecture-by-professor-rabab-abdelhadi
https://inside.wfu.edu/2024/09/october-7-community-update/
https://wfuogb.com/24991/news/breaking-wake-forest-cancels-oct-7-speaker-event-after-facing-backlash/
https://provost.wfu.edu/2024/10/a-letter-to-faculty/