Harvard Defends Awarding Honorary Degree to Professor Who Supports Israel Boycott, But Shuns Her Views

Harvard defended its decision to award an honorary degree to Elaine H. Kim — a writer and University of California, Berkeley, professor emerita who has supported boycotts against Israel — during its Commencement ceremony last week, but distanced itself from Kim’s beliefs.

In a statement posted online Thursday, the University reaffirmed its opposition to academic boycotts and emphasized that the political beliefs of its honorary degree recipients were not a reflection of its own. The statement did not mention Kim — whose scholarship focuses on Asian American cultural studies and feminism — by name.

“There have been questions this year about the views of one honorary degree recipient who seems to have supported academic boycotts,” the statement read. “In granting an honorary degree, Harvard University is not endorsing the political views of the recipient.”

Kim’s award sparked controversy after last Thursday’s Commencement ceremony, where Harvard conferred six honorary degrees in total. When reports of her involvement in academic boycotts against Israel began circulating online, they prompted swift backlash from prominent Harvard alumni.

Kim has long been a critic of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians. In January 2003, she signed a public letter expressing concern that Israel would use the Iraq War as a cover to “commit further crimes against the Palestinian people, up to full-fledged ethnic cleansing.”

She has supported the United States Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a group that protests engagement with Israeli universities and cultural institutions. She recently signed a statement condemning a tour by the Batsheva Dance Company — an Israeli dance troupe — calling it an “attempt to artwash the Israeli occupation of historic Palestine.”

The January 2025 statement denounced Israel’s “campaign of death in Gaza and the West Bank,” accusing the country of engaging in “genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.”

Samuel W. Lessin ’05 — a former Facebook executive and founder of the 1636 Forum, a powerful alumni group — took to X on Sunday to denounce Harvard’s decision to grant Kim her honorary doctor of laws.

“I am strongly pro-Harvard self-reform & believe in the President’s intentions,” he wrote, “but then the Corporation does wildly bad stuff.”

He wrote that the move either reflected a failure of due diligence or a refusal to push back against recommendations that ought to be rejected. He argued that both undermined any argument that Harvard was committed to getting “back on the academic excellence mission & out of politics.”

Harvard’s decision to publicly respond was an unusual acknowledgment of swirling criticism about an individual affiliate— and a break with the silence it has committed to maintaining on most public controversies under its institutional voice policy. Last year, when Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa was accused of antisemitism for remarks on “power and money” in her Commencement address, Harvard did not comment on the allegations, choosing to wait out the flap instead.

In a statement to The Crimson, Kim defended her participation in boycotts of Israeli institutions.

“I am among the many who differentiate between antisemitism and opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” she wrote. “Nothing — including the revocation of this award and certainly not bullying — will prevent me from expressing my opposition to what I consider Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity in the Palestinian territories.”

During the degree conferral, Harvard Provost John H. Manning ’82 praised Kim’s “fervent commitment to community service” and her pioneering role in Asian American studies.

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 also celebrated Kim during the ceremony, calling her a “pathmarking scholar of Asian American lives.”

“She sees that making waves can help raise the tide,” he said.

The Thursday statement comes amid Harvard’s escalating standoff with the Trump administration, which has cited allegations of campus antisemitism to justify multibillion dollar cuts to federal funding, new restrictions on international student visas, and threats to revoke the University’s tax-exempt status.

Jason D. Greenblatt — a longtime Trump ally and his former advisor on Israel — slammed Harvard’s decision to award Kim a degree in a statement on Linkedin, calling it “extraordinary, awful, but not at all surprising.”

“Know what you are standing for when you claim President Trump is going too far,” he wrote.

But Kim applauded Harvard’s resistance to demands from the White House.

“I have been very inspired by the university’s strong defense of American higher education and for that reason am all the more honored by its decision to award an honorary degree to me,” she wrote.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.