On July 31, 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) overwhelmingly adopted a “Resolution on the Situation in Gaza.” After careful consideration of the evidence, the IAGS concluded that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” The Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network (GHSCN)—an association of over 700 scholars and practitioners—affirms the findings of this expert opinion. In addition, the GHSCN condemns in the strongest possible terms the defamatory attacks launched against our colleagues in the IAGS and we abhor the denialism and bad faith that persist among some in the fields of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Silence and distortion in the face of overwhelming evidence serve only to enable atrocity.
We write to express our profound concern regarding the planned faculty layoffs and threatened department and program closures within the Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages and across the College of the Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon. Secretive decisions made in haste and without meaningful faculty consultation undermine both tenure protections and academic freedom and mirror the authoritarian decision-making processes against which our scholarship warns. Accepting a $25 million gift to strengthen global studies while simultaneously decimating the linguistic foundations of such work raises troubling questions for future donors and partner institutions about institutional integrity and long-term vision. These reductions come amid the worldwide intensification of authoritarian politics, attacks on democratic institutions, and the manipulation of cultural and linguistic identities to justify exclusion and violence. Now more than ever, universities have a heightened responsibility to expand and strengthen their capacity to foster cross-cultural understanding, critical analysis of authoritarian movements, and deep linguistic competency that enables genuine engagement with diverse communities. Program closures send precisely the wrong message at precisely the wrong time.
We contest the widespread “conspiracy of helplessness” and the normalization of mass violence and starvation in Gaza. We have learned from history that there are many ways in which states can take action in response to crimes against humanity. We urge all states who signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to fulfill their responsibilities under international law: demand and enforce a permanent ceasefire, an arms embargo, the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, unimpeded distribution of humanitarian aid, and equality and self-determination for all Palestinians.
The IHRA definition constitutes an attack on constitutional rights to free expression and has functioned to discipline, detain, expel, and deport students and scholars. University administrators have the power to come together and assert that the actions of Mahmoud Khalil, Badar Khan Suri, Rümeysa Öztürk, and others wrongfully arrested simply for expressing their political views, are not antisemitic.
The abduction and detention of graduate and undergraduate students by Federal immigration authorities, revocation of visas, deportation of scholars, and removal of leadership are creating a terrifying precedent that will quickly extend beyond the criminalization of pro-Palestinian advocacy to threaten the freedom of all students and faculty. The Trump administration's feigned concerns about "Jewish safety" are attempts to disparage, isolate, and defund our universities.
We unequivocally condemn Harvard University for what appears to be another act of sacrificing members of its own institution who advocate for Palestinian human rights; in so doing, Harvard legitimizes Trump's cynical weaponization of antisemitism.