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When programs change students’ lives, they should be celebrated — not dismantled.

In the summer of 2022, the now-suspended Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative at Harvard Divinity School gave me the opportunity to live and intern in the occupied West Bank. Despite three years in a dual master’s program at the University and at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, my three months in Palestine were by far my most formative academic experience. It did what many programs cannot: bridge theory with on-the-ground practice.

RCPI contains multiple components: a semester-long course entitled, HDS 3335: “Learning in Context: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine” in Cambridge, a mandatory two-week trip to the region, and an optional, funded summer internship of students’ choice. While there, we witnessed the harsh truths of apartheid and occupation firsthand — truths that Israel and its allied governmental and academic institutions work tirelessly to obscure.

But no matter how hard Israel and Zionist institutions try, they could not hide what I saw that summer. I witnessed the Israeli military arrest a Palestinian child in a Bethlehem refugee camp; attended a peaceful march outside Ramallah where a 16-year-old, Amjad Abu Alya, was killed by an Israeli bullet; and myself experienced the daily disruptions caused by checkpoints and road closures. Had it not been for RCPI, I would have never gotten an unfiltered view of the Israeli occupation of Palestine — one which deviated from mainstream narratives and exposed an incriminating reality.

Once in Palestine, it was impossible to ignore the deep inequities between Palestinians and Israelis — the latter enjoying vastly greater access to fundamental rights such as water, electricity, and freedom of movement, their supremacy maintained through the subjugation of Palestinians.

Given how many Palestinians are barred from returning to their homeland, this trip was an extraordinary privilege. Few who pontificate on this context have actually had the opportunity offered by RCPI: to engage deeply in the classroom with literature historically erased by the academy, spend two weeks on the ground hearing testimonies from dozens of individuals, and actually live in Palestine.

The academy is meant to provide access to a diverse range of thoughts and narratives, but the most impactful academic spaces are those that expose us to voices on the margins. From occupied Palestine to this campus, any narrative short of total acceptance of Israel’s actions faces racist scrutiny and censure — metaphorically at best, and literally at worst, as evident by the more than 230 journalists who have been killed in Gaza over the past 18 months.

To me, it is clear RCPI was gutted because its students left that summer with eyes unwilling to look away from a reality in which children are imprisoned, villages are demolished, and community centers are tear-gassed — made possible through American rhetorical and financial support.

Even when silence seemed like the more convenient choice, many of us knew being silent upon our return would be a disservice to those who entrusted us with their stories: Palestinians, Bedouins, Yemeni and Ethiopian Jews, each of whom I remember speaking to the myriad hierarchies they face under the Israeli government.

Had this been any other program — focused on any other region — designed to give students real-world experience, RCPI would have been lauded. It is obvious RCPI was gutted because it was an institutional space to discuss and learn about Palestine — part of a broader campaign against Palestine and Palestinians at HDS and across the University.

Three weeks ago, HDS announced it would “suspend” RCPI amidst budget cuts and accusations of one-sidedness. HDS also let go of Hilary Rantisi, a dedicated teacher, scholar, and mentor — and the only Palestinian American employed at HDS. In January, Diane L. Moore, the Associate Dean of the Religion and Public Life program at HDS — which houses RCPI — abruptly departed a semester before she was set to retire. One day later, RPL Assistant Dean Hussein Rashid announced his resignation, citing Islamophobia and Harvard’s interference in the RPL program.

On Monday, Harvard took a stand against the Trump administration’s lawless demands in the name of upholding academic freedom and veritas. At the same time, there is an extent — and an exception — to the University’s defiance. That exception is Palestine, exemplified by the suspension of RCPI.

Over the past 18 months, programs like RCPI have become increasingly vital to academic freedom, the bedrock of any properly functioning university. Its suspension is further proof that veritas is nothing more than a shiny emblem to Harvard.

What Harvard — and federal administrations, whether Biden’s or Trump’s — must understand is that abolishing programs like RCPI will not quash the movement for Palestinian liberation. If anything, it will only make our voices louder and our cause more compelling.

Ciara S. Moezidis is a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School.