Two professors at Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies will be leaving their positions amid the campus crackdown by the Donald Trump administration.
Harvard University has been under pressure from the US government to address the accusations of antisemitism on campus. The Middle Eastern Studies department has been under criticism for an anti-Israel bias as well.
The director, Cemal Kafadar, a professor of Turkish studies and Rosie Bsheer, associate director, and a historian of the Middle East were the latest planning to leave.
In an email, David Cutler, the interim dean of Social Science, announced that Kafadar would be leaving the post at the end of the academic year.
Presently, Kafadar is on leave for the 2024-2025 academic year. He will be temporarily replaced by Salmaan Keshavjee, a global health expert.
The report of the professors leaving was first published by The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper. The report citing faculty members read, that professors "were forced to leave their posts".
The report also said that at Columbia University, where the Trump administration announced $400 million in federal funding cuts, the administrators agreed to White House demands to place the school's Middle Eastern studies programs under closer administrative supervision.
It is not just the Middle Eastern studies, owing to mounting pressure the Harvard School of Public Health recently suspended its research partnership with Birzeit University in the West Bank.
Asli Bali, president of the Middle East Studies Association called the university's move "unprecedented".
Universities across the US have faced intensifying political pressure from the Trump administration to monitor student groups, departments and pro-Palestinian academics over 'anti-Israel' bias.