"A Letter on Justice and Open Debate", also known as the ''Harper's'' Letter, is an

open letter An open letter is a Letter (message), letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally. Open letters usually take the form of a letter (mess ...

defending

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been ...

published on the ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'' website on July 7, 2020, with 153 signatories, criticizing what it called "

illiberalism An illiberal democracy describes a governing system in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it does not con ...

" spreading across society. While the letter denounced President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

as "a real threat to democracy", it argued that hostility to free speech was becoming widespread on the political left as well.

Background

The letter was drafted by writers Robert Worth,

George Packer George Packer (born August 13, 1960) is a US journalist, novelist, and playwright. He is best known for his writings for ''The New Yorker'' and ''The Atlantic'' about U.S. foreign policy and for his book '' The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq''. ...

, David Greenberg,

Mark Lilla Mark Lilla (born 1956) is an American political scientist, historian of ideas, journalist, and professor of humanities at Columbia University in New York City. A self-described liberal, he frequently, though not always, presents views from that p ...

and

Thomas Chatterton Williams Thomas Chatterton Williams (born March 26, 1981) is an American cultural critic and author. Williams, described by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' as having "spearheaded" the effort, was initially worried that its timing might cause it to be viewed as a reaction to the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...

, which he viewed as a legitimate response to

police brutality in the United States Police brutality is the repression by personnel affiliated with law enforcement when dealing with suspects and civilians. The term is also applied to abuses by "corrections" personnel in municipal, state, and federal prison camps, including mi ...

, but ultimately decided to publish it, citing various recent events such as the firing of

David Shor David Shor (born 1991) is an American data scientist and political consultant known for analyzing political polls. He serves as head of data science with Blue Rose Research in New York City, and is a senior fellow with the Center for American Prog ...

. Shor was fired after public backlash from

tweeting Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, ...

a paper by

Omar Wasow Omar Tomas Wasow (born December 22, 1970) is an assistant professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Political Science. He is co-founder of the social networking website BlackPlanet. Life Wasow grew up in a multi-ethnic family. His father, Bernar ...

, which argued

nonviolent protest Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, const ...

was more effective at shaping

public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...

. '' Vox'' writer and signatory

Matthew Yglesias Matthew Yglesias (; born May 18, 1981) is a liberal American blogger and journalist who writes about economics and politics. Yglesias has written columns and articles for publications such as ''The American Prospect'', ''The Atlantic'', and ''Sla ...

faced pushback from a

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

coworker, who criticized the letter for being signed by "several prominent anti-trans voices". This included Rowling, who attracted controversy for her comments on transgender issues. In total, around 20 people contributed to the contents of the letter.

Summary

The letter describes right-wing illiberalism and then-US president

as "a real threat to democracy", but argues that the political left engages in censorship of its own, denouncing "an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty." Per the letter, "Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes", "The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation", and "We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences." The letter concludes, "If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us."

Signatories

The letter is signed by 153 people, mostly scholars and writers. They include academics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Notable signatories include linguist

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

; fiction writers

J. K. Rowling Joanne Rowling ( "rolling"; born 31 July 1965), also known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and Philanthropy, philanthropist. She wrote ''Harry Potter'', a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to ...

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Wes ...

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nin ...

Martin Amis Martin Louis Amis (born 25 August 1949) is a British novelist, essayist, memoirist, and screenwriter. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and ''London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir '' ...

John Banville William John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W. B. Yeats and Henry J ...

Daniel Kehlmann Daniel Kehlmann (; born 13 January 1975) is a German-language novelist and playwright of both Austrian and German nationality.Jeffrey Eugenides Jeffrey Kent Eugenides (born March 8, 1960) is an American novelist and short story writer. He has written numerous short stories and essays, as well as three novels: ''The Virgin Suicides'' (1993), ''Middlesex'' (2002), and'' The Marriage Plot'' ...

; world chess champion

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

; political scientist

Francis Fukuyama Francis Yoshihiro Fukuyama (; born October 27, 1952) is an American political scientist, political economist, international relations scholar and writer. Fukuyama is known for his book ''The End of History and the Last Man'' (1992), which argue ...

; feminist

Gloria Steinem Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in ...

; cognitive psychologist

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. P ...

; journalists

Fareed Zakaria Fareed Rafiq Zakaria (; born 20 January 1964) is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN's ''Fareed Zakaria GPS'' and writes a weekly paid column for ''The Washington Post.'' He has been a columnist ...

Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little T ...

Anne Applebaum Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian. She has written extensively about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has worked at ''The Econo ...

Ian Buruma Ian Buruma (born December 28, 1951) is a Dutch writer and editor who lives and works in the United States. In 2017, he became editor of ''The New York Review of Books'', but left the position in September 2018. Much of his writing has focused on ...

David Frum David Jeffrey Frum (; born June 30, 1960) is a Canadian-American political commentator and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, who is currently a senior editor at ''The Atlantic'' as well as an MSNBC contributor. In 2003, Frum au ...

, and David Brooks; composer

Wynton Marsalis Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awar ...

; writer and former Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

Michael Ignatieff Michael Grant Ignatieff (; born May 12, 1947) is a Canadian author, academic and former politician who served as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a histo ...

; political theorist

Michael Walzer Michael Laban Walzer (born 1935) is an American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of ''Dissent'', an intellectual magazine ...

; economist

Deirdre McCloskey Deirdre Nansen McCloskey (born Donald N. McCloskey; September 11, 1942 in Ann Arbor, Michigan) is the distinguished professor of economics, history, english, and communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She is also adjunct pr ...

; poet

Roya Hakakian , birth_date = ca. 1966 , birth_place = Tehran, Iran , death_date = , death_place = , occupation = , language = Persian, English , nationality = , citizenship = American , education = , alma_mater = Brooklyn College, , period = , ...

; surgeon

Atul Gawande Atul Atmaram Gawande (born November 5, 1965) is an American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a professor in the Departmen ...

; music journalist

Greil Marcus Greil Marcus (born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. Biography Marcus wa ...

; and social psychologist

Jonathan Haidt Jonathan David Haidt (; born October 19, 1963) is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business. His main areas of study are the psychology of ...

. Signatories generally did not know who had signed the letter until it was published. At least one,

Jennifer Finney Boylan Jennifer Finney Boylan (born June 22, 1958) is a bestselling author, transgender activist, professor at Barnard College, and a contributing opinion writer for the ''New York Times''. Early life and education Boylan was born in Valley Forge, Pen ...

, expressed qualms about some of the other signatories but affirmed her endorsement. Others who reaffirmed their support for the letter's contents, such as

Katha Pollitt Katha Pollitt (born October 14, 1949) is an American poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry. Her writing focuses on political and social issues from a left-leaning perspective, including abo ...

, said they disagreed with some of the signatories on other issues but did not mind signing the same statement.

Full list

Elliot Ackerman Elliot Ackerman (born April 12, 1980) is an American author and former Marine Corps Special Operations Team Leader. He is the son of businessman Peter Ackerman and author Joanne Leedom-Ackerman and the brother of mathematician and wrestler Nate ...

* Saladin Ambar *

Marie Arana Marie Arana (born Lima, Peru) is an author, editor, journalist, critic, and the inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress. Biography Marie Arana was born in Peru, the daughter of Jorge Enrique Arana Cisneros, a Peruvian-born civil ...

* Mia Bay *

Louis Begley Louis Begley (born Ludwik Begleiter; October 6, 1933) is a Polish-born Jewish American novelist. He is best known for writing the semi-autobiographical Holocaust novel ''Wartime Lies'' (1991) and the ''Schmidt'' trilogy: ''About Schmidt'' (1996 ...

* Roger Berkowitz *

Paul Berman Paul Lawrence Berman (born 1949) is an American writer on politics and literature. His books include ''Terror and Liberalism'' ( a ''New York Times'' best-seller in 2003), ''The Flight of the Intellectuals'', ''A Tale of Two Utopias'', ''Power and ...

Sheri Berman Sheri is a female given name, from the French for ''beloved'', and may refer to: * Sheri Anderson, American TV writer * Sheri Everts, American academic * Sheri Forde, Canadian reporter * Sheri Graner Ray, video game specialist * Sheri L. Dew (b ...

* Reginald Dwayne Betts *

Neil Blair Captain Robert Neil Blair CVO RN was Private Secretary and Treasurer to The Duke of York, 1990–2001. Blair was born in 1936, and educated at St John's College, Johannesburg, and Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. He served in the Ro ...

David W. Blight David William Blight (born 1949) is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Previousl ...

David Bromwich David Bromwich is Sterling Professor of English at Yale University. Career After graduating from Yale with a B.A. in 1973 and a Ph.D. four years later, Bromwich became an instructor at Princeton University, where he was promoted to Mellon Prof ...

* David Brooks *

* Lea Carpenter *

Nicholas Christakis Nicholas A. Christakis (born May 7, 1962) is a Greek-American sociologist and physician known for his research on social networks and on the socioeconomic, biosocial, and evolutionary determinants of human welfare (including the behavior, healt ...

Roger Cohen Roger Cohen (born 2 August 1955) is a journalist and author. He was a reporter, editor and columnist for ''The New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune (later re-branded as the'' ''International New York Times)''.and became head of th ...

* Frances D. Cook *

Drucilla Cornell Drucilla Cornell (born 16 June 1950), is an American philosopher and feminist theorist, whose work has been influential in political and legal philosophy, ethics, deconstruction, critical theory, and feminism. Cornell is an emerita Professor of P ...

Kamel Daoud Kamel Daoud ( ar, كمال داود; born June 17, 1970) is a French-Algerian writer and journalist. He currently edits the French-language daily '' Le quotidien d’Oran,'' for which he writes a popular column, "Raïna Raïkoum" (Our Opinion, Y ...

Meghan Daum Meghan Elizabeth Daum (born February 13, 1970) is an American author, essayist, podcaster, and journalist. Childhood and education Although she was born in California, Daum grew up in Austin, Texas, and Ridgewood, New Jersey. She received her ba ...

Gerald Early Gerald Lyn Early (born April 21, 1952) is an American essayist and American culture critic. He is currently the Merle Kling Professor of Modern letters, of English, African studies, African-American studies, American culture studies, and Directo ...

Jeffrey Eugenides Jeffrey Kent Eugenides (born March 8, 1960) is an American novelist and short story writer. He has written numerous short stories and essays, as well as three novels: ''The Virgin Suicides'' (1993), ''Middlesex'' (2002), and'' The Marriage Plot'' ...

Dexter Filkins Dexter Price Filkins (born May 24, 1961) is an American journalist known primarily for his coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for ''The New York Times''. He was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his dispatches from Afghanista ...

Federico Finchelstein Federico Finchelstein is an Argentine historian and chair of the history department at the New School for Social Research and is director of the Janey Program in Latin American Studies. After receiving his undergraduate education at the Universi ...

Caitlin Flanagan Caitlin Flanagan (born November 14, 1961) is an American writer and social critic. A contributor to ''The Atlantic'' since February 2001, she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2019. Her 2004 piece for ''The New Yorker'' was e ...

* Richard T. Ford *

Kmele Foster Kmele Foster (born October 31, 1980) is an American telecommunications entrepreneur and political commentator. He is co-founder and vice president of the telecommunications consultancy TelcoIQ and is currently a co-host of the podcast ''The Fifth ...

Todd Gitlin Todd Alan Gitlin (January 6, 1943 – February 5, 2022) was an American sociologist, political activist and writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He wrote about the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular an ...

Kim Ghattas Kim Ghattas (; born 1977) is a Dutch-Lebanese journalist for the BBC who has covered the US State Department. She is a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of ''Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Fort ...

Michelle Goldberg Michelle Goldberg (born 1975)"Michelle Goldberg". Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2016. Retrieved via Biography in Context database, January 28, 2017. is an American journalist and author, and an op-ed columnist for ''The New York Tim ...

Rebecca Goldstein Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (born February 23, 1950) is an American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She has written ten books, both fiction and non-fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Princeton University, and ...

Anthony Grafton Anthony Thomas Grafton (born May 21, 1950) is an American historian of early modern Europe and the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, where he is also the Director the Program in European Cultural Studies. He i ...

* David Greenberg *

Linda Greenhouse Linda Joyce Greenhouse (born January 9, 1947) is an American legal journalist who is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covered ...

* (withdrawn) * Rinne B. Groff *

Sarah Haider Sarah Haider is a Pakistani-American writer, public speaker, and political activist. She created the advocacy group Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), which seeks to normalize religious dissent and to help former Muslims leave the religion ...

Shadi Hamid Shadi Hamid (born 1983) is an American author and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is also a contributing writer at ''The Atlantic'' as well as research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary. This appointment is the first ...

Jeet Heer Jeet Heer is a Canadian author, comics critic, literary critic and journalist. He is a national affairs correspondent for ''The Nation'' magazine and a former staff writer at ''The New Republic''. As of 2014, he was writing a doctoral thesis at Yor ...

* Katie Herzog *

Susannah Heschel Susannah Heschel (born 15 May 1956) is an American scholar and the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. The author and editor of numerous books and articles, she is a Guggenheim Fellow and the recipient of ...

Adam Hochschild Adam Hochschild (; born October 5, 1942) is an American author, journalist, historian and lecturer. His best-known works include ''King Leopold's Ghost'' (1998), '' To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918'' (2011), ''Bur ...

Arlie Russell Hochschild Arlie Russell Hochschild (; born January 15, 1940) is an American professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and writer. Hochschild has long focused on the human emotions that underlie moral beliefs, practices, and ...

Eva Hoffman Eva Hoffman (born Ewa Wydra on 1 July 1945) is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning writer and academic. Early life and education Eva Hoffman was born in Kraków, Poland, shortly after World War II. Her parents, Boris and Maria Wydra, surv ...

Coleman Hughes Coleman Cruz Hughes (born February 25, 1996) is an American writer and podcast host. He was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and a fellow and contributing editor at their ''City Journal'', and is the host of the podcast '' ...

Hussein Ibish Hussein Yusuf Kamal Ibish (Arabic Language, Arabic: حسين يوسف كمال أيبش; is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He is a weekly columnist for Bloomberg L.P., Bloomberg and The National (Abu Dha ...

* Zaid Jilani * Bill T. Jones *

Wendy Kaminer Wendy Kaminer (born December 28, 1949) is an American lawyer and writer. She has written several books on contemporary social issues, including ''A Fearful Freedom: Women's Flight From Equality'', about the conflict between egalitarian and protect ...

* Matthew Karp *

Daniel Kehlmann Daniel Kehlmann (; born 13 January 1975) is a German-language novelist and playwright of both Austrian and German nationality.Randall Kennedy Randall LeRoy Kennedy (born September 10, 1954) is an American law professor at Harvard University and author. He is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law and his research focuses on the intersection of racial conflict and legal institutions in ...

Khaled Khalifa Khaled Khalifa (born 1964) ( ar, خالد خليفة, sometimes in English written as Khalid Khalifa) is a Syrian novelist, screenwriter, and poet. He has been nominated three times for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, including being s ...

Parag Khanna Parag Khanna (born 27 July 1977 in Kanpur) is an Indian American specialist in geopolitics and globalization. He is the managing partner of FutureMap, and former managing partner of Hybrid Reality as well as Co-Founder & CEO of Factotum. Early lif ...

Laura Kipnis Laura Kipnis is an American cultural critic and essayist. Her work focuses on sexual politics, gender issues, aesthetics, popular culture, and pornography. She began her career as a video artist, exploring similar themes in the form of video ess ...

Frances Kissling Frances Kissling (born 15 June 1943) is an activist in the fields of religion, reproduction, and women's rights. She is the president of the Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy. She was president of Catholics for Choice (founded 1973) from ...

Enrique Krauze Enrique Krauze (Mexico City, September 16, 1947) is a Mexican historian, essayist, editor, and entrepreneur. He has written more than twenty books, some of which are: ''Mexico: Biography of Power'', ''Redeemers'', and ''El pueblo soy yo'' (''I a ...

* Anthony Kronman *

Joy Ladin Joy Ladin (born March 24, 1961) is an American poet and the former David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University. She was the first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox Jewish institution. Early ...

Nicholas Lemann Nicholas Berthelot Lemann is an American writer and academic, the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism and Dean Emeritus of the Faculty of Journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has be ...

Susie Linfield Susie Linfield is a social and cultural theorist at New York University. Background and education Between the ages of 8 and 15 Linfield was a student at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet in New York City. She danced as a student in pro ...

* Damon Linker *

Dahlia Lithwick Dahlia Lithwick is a Canadian-American lawyer, writer, and journalist. Lithwick is currently a contributing editor at ''Newsweek'' and senior editor at ''Slate''. She primarily writes about law and politics in the United States. She writes "Supr ...

Steven Lukes Steven Michael Lukes (born 1941) is a British political and social theorist. Currently he is a professor of politics and sociology at New York University. He was formerly a professor at the University of Siena, the European University Institute ...

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* Susan Madrak * Phoebe Maltz Bovy *

* Kati Marton * Debra Mashek *

John McWhorter John Hamilton McWhorter V (; born October 6, 1965) is an American linguist with a specialty in creole languages, sociolects, and Black English. He is currently associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches Amer ...

* Uday Mehta *

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* Yascha Mounk *

Samuel Moyn Samuel Aaron Moyn (born 1972) is the Henry Luce, Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and Professor of History at Yale University, which he joined in July 2017. Previously, he was a professor of history at Columbia Universit ...

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Cary Nelson Cary Nelson (1946), is an American professor emeritus of English and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was president of the American Association of University Professors between 2 ...

Olivia Nuzzi Olivia Nuzzi (born January 6, 1993) is a political reporter who serves as the Washington correspondent for ''New York'' magazine. Early and personal life Nuzzi was born in New York City. She is the daughter of Kelly and John Nuzzi, who was born ...

* Mark Oppenheimer *

Dael Orlandersmith Dael Orlandersmith (born Donna Brown, 1960–) is an American actress, poet and playwright. She is known for her Obie Award-winning ''Beauty's Daughter'' and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama, ''Yellowman''. Early life Orlandersmith, born ...

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* Greg Pardlo *

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* Claire Bond Potter * Taufiq Rahim *

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* Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen *

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Karim Sadjadpour Karim Sadjadpour is an Iranian-American policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment. Prior to that he was "chief Iran analyst" at the International Crisis Group. He is a contributor to BBC TV and radio, CNN, National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour and ...

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Judith Shulevitz Judith Anne Shulevitz is an American journalist, editor and culture critic. She has been a columnist for ''Slate'', ''The New York Times Book Review'', and ''The New Republic''. She is a contributing writer for ''The Atlantic''. Career Shulevitz ...

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Reaction

The letter drew mixed reactions on

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

. In an opinion piece for CNN,

John Avlon John Phillips Avlon (born January 19, 1973) is an American journalist and political commentator. He is a Senior Political Analyst and anchor at CNN and was the editor-in-chief and managing director of ''The Daily Beast'' from 2013 to 2018. Avlon ...

praised the letter, writing, "Demonizing principled disagreement does not advance liberal values—it fuels negative partisan narratives that Trump's reelection depends on. It can distract from actual purveyors of hate, and a sitting President who advances policies that are often racist or homophobic as well as anti-immigrant." In another CNN opinion piece,

Jeff Yang Jeff Yang () (born ) is an American writer, journalist, businessman, and business/media consultant who writes the ''Tao Jones'' column for ''The Wall Street Journal''. Previously, he was the "Asian Pop" columnist at the ''San Francisco Chronicle' ...

criticized the letter, writing, "it's hard not to see the letter as merely an elegantly written affirmation of elitism and privilege", and that the signatories "in the face of resultant backlash, dismissed rebuttals and positioned themselves as beleaguered victims of the current culture, turning their support for open debate and free expression into an example of stark hypocrisy or sly gaslighting." ''Public Seminar'' criticized the letter's timing, stating that the letter primarily blamed cancel culture for disrupting free and open conversations at a moment during the George Floyd protests when it was becoming clearer what influence institutions had in controlling debate. A response letter, "A More Specific Letter on Justice and Open Debate", organized by the lecturer Arionne Nettles and signed by over 160 people in academia and media, critiqued the ''Harper's'' letter as a plea to end

cancel culture Cancel culture, or rarely also known as call-out culture, is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles—whether it be online, on ...

by successful professionals with large platforms while excluding others who have been "cancelled for generations". The response named specific incidents in which

Black people Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in s ...

were silenced by their institutions. Multiple signatories omitted either their names or institutional affiliations, citing fear of "professional retaliation". Kerri Greenidge later asked for her name to be removed from the ''Harper's'' letter, which was done.

References

External links

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate
''Harper's Magazine'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Letter on Justice and Open Debate, A 2020 controversies in the United States 2020 documents 2020 essays Criticism of Donald Trump Open letters Works originally published in Harper's Magazine