The Harvard Educational Review (HER) is reported to have decided to cancel a special issue that was to focus on education in Palestine. This issue, which was completed and approved by its editorial team, aimed to explore the destruction of Gaza’s education system in the wake of Israel’s military campaign since October 2023.

The cancellation, carried out by Harvard’s publishing authorities, reportedly without consultation with the editorial team or authors, is deeply troubling. It undermines academic freedom, silences scholarly voices, and contradicts the university's stated commitments to open inquiry and justice. Moreover, it removes from public view one of the most pressing educational tragedies of our time.

The special issue, according to a Guardian report, was to include a dozen articles, essays, and commentaries that had been reviewed internally by a number of editors.

Topics ranged from the evolution of the concept of scholasticide, which refers to the systematic destruction of education amid genocide, to the chilling effects of repression on Palestine-related teaching in US universities. These contributions offered rigorous scholarship and deep ethical engagement.

The HER issue intended to document how the people of Gaza had built a resilient education system despite occupation and blockade. For decades, Palestinians invested in schools, universities, and literacy initiatives under impossible conditions. Education offered hope and continuity. It became a vital space for collective life, identity, and imagination. That system now lies in ruins.

More than 55,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, including thousands of children.

Every university in Gaza has been destroyed. Schools were turned into shelters for the displaced, many of which were bombed. Students, teachers, and entire educational communities have been left behind. The term scholasticide captures the scale of devastation: the killing of learning, the targeting of knowledge, and the erasure of future possibilities.

Despite this, education in Gaza continued. Teachers taught classes in shelters. Students studied by candlelight. Communities shared books and organised informal lessons. This resilience should be recognised, studied, and supported, not erased. The HER issue sought to do just that. Its cancellation denies this record of resistance and removes a vital body of work from scholarly debate.

Chilling effect

The decision appears to have been made by the Harvard Education Publishing Group and the leadership of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, not the HER editorial team.

The move suggests pressure and political fear rather than editorial judgement. It bypasses academic protocols, undermines trust in scholarly publishing, and sends a message that some topics, no matter how well-researched, are too controversial to be published.

This is not only an American issue. It matters deeply to scholars in South Africa and across the Global South. South Africa’s past under apartheid taught us what it means when education is used to oppress rather than liberate.

We know what it is to be denied schooling, to have books banned, and to see universities turned into tools of exclusion. We also know how education became a space of resistance, how teachers, students, and communities refused to give up on the right to learn and to teach.

That history demands that we speak out today. The struggle for education in Palestine is not separate from our own. It is part of the broader fight for educational justice everywhere, in South Africa, across Africa and worldwide. Palestinian scholars, students, and educators deserve the same freedoms we fought for: the freedom to teach, to learn, to write, and to be heard.

Academic freedom

The cancellation of this issue of the Harvard Education Review is not only an editorial failure. It is a moral one, an issue of suppression and silencing. It betrays the university's role as a space for truth-seeking and critical engagement. Learning is not just about transmitting facts. It is about asking questions, exploring complex realities, and standing up for justice.

We urge Harvard to reconsider this decision and reaffirm its commitment to academic freedom. We invite education scholars everywhere to raise their voices in support of Palestinian colleagues and students. We urge universities to create spaces for dialogue, scholarship, and solidarity.

Palestinian children deserve schools. Their teachers deserve safe classrooms. Their students deserve a future with hope. Our books, journals, and educational institutions must help tell their stories, not hide them.

We believe the world must hear Palestine. Its educational struggle matters. Its people matter. And their right to learn must be defended by all of us.

Professor Aslam Fataar is a research professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and Dr Najwa Norodien-Fataar is a senior lecturer and head of curriculum development in the Fundani Centre for Higher Education Development at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.