Harvard Disinvites Feminist Scholar Dr. Devin Buckley
WoLF (Women’s Liberation Front)| Dr. Buckley | Open Letter
Feminist philosopher Dr. Devin Buckley was scheduled to speak on British Romanticism and philosophy at Harvard in April 2022 She was “disinvited” due to her board membership with WoLF, "an organization that takes a public stance regarding trans people as dangerous and deceptive.” Her slated talk did not include any discussion of transgender issues.
WoLF, an organization with a mission to “work to protect, advance and restore the rights of women and girls,” published both the email disinviting Buckley and Buckley’s open letter in response.
In the email from her Harvard colleague, Buckley is told, “Really, it's not so much because of your own personal conviction regarding trans identity. It's more about the public stance you've taken and how you've recently crafted a professional presence around these issues.” It is noted that Buckley is an excellent scholar, and that this may not preclude future engagement: “You've done cutting-edge work in the study of Romanticism and religion. Maybe we can work out some other kind of engagement elsewhere in the future.”
In response, Buckley explains that “news of my disinvitation to Harvard is disappointing, not only because I would have loved to give a lecture on poetry and philosophy, but because this is yet another instance of an elite university punishing (and misrepresenting) someone who questions fashionable far left dogma…This is a case of Harvard deplatforming me for political reasons entirely unrelated to my scholarship.”
She goes on to call Harvard on its tomes of scholarship—”I invite Harvard to purge its libraries and museums of all those who hold views unacceptable to Harvard. If I am to be silenced, then why do the tomes and treatises of history’s innumerable sexist, racist, homophobes still sit on Harvard’s hallowed shelves and continue to be cited with reverence? Harvard should cleanse them all and leave nothing but the purity of empty space.”
After defending her views, Buckley goes on to conclude that, “For my part, I’d rather be damned with the Romantics and Plato than go to woke heaven with Erin and the Harvard faculty.”
