FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 10, 2025
Contact: secretariat@mesana.org
MESA Files Amicus Brief in Harvard Lawsuit Challenging Federal Funding Cuts
BOSTON—The Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the leading professional membership association for scholars and students of the Middle East and North Africa, has filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Harvard University in its federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s funding cuts.
The brief argues that the federal government has violated the First Amendment rights of Harvard’s students, researchers, and scholars working in Middle East studies. By pressuring university administrators to interfere in academic programs devoted to Middle East studies, the government has violated core First Amendment protections. “This is an unprecedented level of coercion that threatens academic freedom both within and beyond the field of Middle East studies,” said MESA President Aslı Bâli. “We must support our colleagues there in their time of need and defend the broader principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression.”
As described in the brief, the federal government has already successfully pressured Harvard to punish and unlawfully limit scholarship related to Middle East studies. On February 27, the Trump administration informed Harvard that it was under investigation for alleged antisemitism on campus and demanded a meeting with administrators within 30 days. Just before the government’s deadline, Harvard took a number of steps to curtail or even shut down Middle East scholarship: Harvard forced out the director and associate director of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies; ended a research collaboration with Birzeit University in Palestine; and suspended its Religion, Conflict, and Peace initiative and terminated its sole staff position, held by the only Palestinian American employee at Harvard Divinity School.
Moreover, Harvard had earlier this year updated its anti-discrimination policy to treat identification with Zionism as a protected category akin to race, religion, or national origin. The brief argues that for Middle East studies, “treating critique of Zionism as a form of unlawful discrimination is the equivalent of imposing Creationism on biologists or Flat Earthism on geographers: it forecloses questions foundational to our field that make independent and rigorous scholarship possible.”
The judge has set an expedited briefing schedule in the case, with a hearing on Harvard’s motion for summary judgment set for July 21.
Read the amicus brief here.
MESA is represented in the amicus by Darryl Li and by Corey Martin of HM Law.
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The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) is a non-profit association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications and services that enhance education, further intellectual exchange, recognize professional distinction, and defend academic freedom. https://mesana.org
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