Anthropology and African-American studies professor J. Lorand Matory ’82 thinks so. At a recent Faculty meeting, he proposed that Harvard reaffirm "civil dialogue," arguing that critics of Israel "tremble in fear" on campus.

In fear of what, one wonders—becoming a bestselling author at the Harvard Coop?

Nine months ago, I started a student journal entitled "New Society: Harvard College Student Middle East Journal," with the aim of creating a more constructive dialogue on campus about the future of the region. The journal was inspired by a Harvard Hillel trip to Israel last winter. I was determined to include a variety of perspectives, so before I approached Harvard Students for Israel or any other Jewish groups on campus, I asked several Muslim and Arab students to contribute articles to the journal.

But I was met with little success: Many Muslim and Arab students preferred not to publish their views, fearing the threat of reprisal.

An Iranian student who had privately expressed opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declined to write, saying he preferred to "lay low" for fear of political consequences back home.

Another Iranian-American student backed out after sending me several articles about Iranian academics based in the U.S. who had been arrested on visits to Tehran. One such academic, Haleh Esfandiari, on a visit to her elderly mother, was detained for eight months and charged with crimes against "national security." The student told me he feared the same fate and worried about what would become of his family if he ever expressed his views about Iran’s theocratic regime.

Similarly, an Arab student who was approached to speak about the situation in Darfur refused, saying that he was certain some of his compatriots at Harvard would report back home about his activities abroad and that he feared being arrested or harassed by his country’s security services.

And one of our writers, Chia N. Mustafa ’09, was told by a poster on the journal’s website that he belonged to "the rank of traitors" and for writing an article advocating independence for Kurdistan.

So when Matory claims that people at Harvard "tremble in fear" because of their views on the Middle East, he is half-right...

On this campus [Columbia], students get berated, publicly mocked in class by professors for mentioning the Armenian genocide, or jihad as part of the problem in the middle east.

You not only don't get publicly mocked by your professor for calling Israel an apartheid state.

I actually know a girl who had to accept a B+ in a class after refusing the opportunity to rewrite a topic-assigned essay to include a discussion of Israeli apartheid. You had to support that definition to get an A- or better.

She won't go public. The fear is too great.