1636 Forum :: Past Newsletters

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June 29, 2024 — Reform Admissions To Improve Open Inquiry and Viewpoint Diversity

THE BIG IDEA: REFORM ADMISSIONS TO IMPROVE OPEN INQUIRY AND VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY

Admissions plays a major role in shaping each Harvard class. It is reasonable to ask questions about the intellectual openness of students, and their interest in activism vs. academics. Admissions encompasses how Harvard markets itself, its recruitment programs, its evaluation criteria, its decision-making process, and who sets the direction for all of these. Based on our research, there are four key areas where Harvard could improve the process by implementing several changes:

Marketing: Highlight open inquiry and constructive dialogue in admissions marketing and specifically communicate to applicants and admits that academic disruption, such as shouting down speakers, is not in line with the school’s value or policies. Survey applicants to see how Harvard’s brand based on these principles is improving over time. Add recruitment efforts to encourage intellectually diverse applicants to apply, especially since they are likely to be alienated by Harvard’s poor track record on viewpoint diversity.

Evaluation Criteria: Explicitly evaluate students on open inquiry, including by adding an essay like “How have you engaged with someone you adamantly disagree with and what have you learned?” and add dedication to open inquiry and constructive dialogue as a characteristic to the admissions rubric.

Decision-making Process: Adjust the voting process to reduce ideological bias. Perhaps this means making the voting process private and having senior admissions leadership review voting patterns for bias.

Governance: Ensure viewpoint diversity on the faculty standing committee. In addition to reviewing representative applications from the pool, monitor the pool broadly for signs of viewpoint bias in who Harvard admits and track it over time to learn from past admissions decisions.

Key points on how undergraduate admissions works today across these four areas:

Marketing:

— Harvard uses a “search list” to recruit high schoolers to apply: Every year, about 100,000 students are on a “search list” of students Harvard reaches out to, encouraging them to apply. Harvard uses factors like test scores and minority background to determine who is on the search list. This recruitment tool shapes the applicant pool.

— Harvard appeals to applicants with an inclination for disruptive activism: In recent years, the admissions office communications of Harvard, and other schools like Yale and Columbia, have emphasized an appreciation for disruptive activism over academics, open inquiry, and constructive dialogue.

— Stanford began to signal a different set of values to its admits this spring: Stanford sent admitted students a letter explicitly stating that its values include diversity of thought, free expression, and constructive disagreement. Stanford's message also clarified that “freedom of expression does not include the right to threaten or harass others and prevent them from engaging as equal participants in campus life.”

— UChicago has built the strongest brand for open inquiry and civil discourse, thanks partially to its famous 2016 admit letter: While its dedication to institutional neutrality dates back several decades, UChicago bolstered this brand among students in a 2016 letter from its Dean of Students to the admits to the Class of 2020. At the time, the letter was panned in the media as raising false alarms. Today, UChicago is ranked #13 in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings while Harvard ranks last at #248.

Evaluation Criteria:

— Harvard is requiring standardized tests again: Harvard made a significant step forward this spring with the reinstatement of SAT/ACT requirements. This move is pivotal as standardized tests have been shown to improve meritocracy in admissions, especially by giving academically excellent students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds an equal opportunity.

— Admissions lacks a focus on open inquiry or constructive dialogue: Within the “personal” category of the admissions rubric, the admissions committee evaluates traits such as “integrity, helpfulness, courage, kindness, fortitude, empathy, self-confidence, leadership ability, maturity, or grit.” However, it does not explicitly seek a dedication to open inquiry, Veritas, or open-mindedness and engagement with diverse opinions.

Decision-making Process:

— Final admissions decisions are made through an in-person vote, so everyone can see how the other committee members vote: Currently, the final step in Harvard’s admissions process is an in-person, majority vote by a 40-member committee, where each member has an equal vote.

— Admissions officers don’t stay long at Harvard: This committee experiences high turnover; in 2018, the director of admissions confirmed that more than half of the 2011 admissions committee was no longer working in the office.

— As Harvard’s student body becomes more monolithic in their thinking, so do its admissions officers: Many members of the committee are recent Harvard College graduates. This hiring practice creates a self-perpetuating cycle where the characteristics of admitted students influence the composition of future admissions officers.

Governance:

— A group of 30 FAS professors set what the admissions committee is supposed to look for: The Standing Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid, comprising about 30 professors from FAS, formulates and implements the policies of the admissions office. The standing committee also reviews representative applications from the pool, particularly those with strong scholarly credentials or exceptional talent in the arts.

— Direction also comes from the President, Provost, and Dean of FAS: The Dean of Admissions technically reports to the Dean of FAS and works closely with the President and Provost as well.

As we continue to learn more about the admissions process and its impact on the broader university environment, we’re focused on several key questions:

— How can Harvard actively recruit and evaluate applicants who are dedicated to open inquiry and constructive dialogue? What backgrounds and groups of students should they focus on?

— How can Harvard prevent bias toward orthodox thinking in its admissions process?

— Are there ways to ensure viewpoint diversity among admissions officers, including age diversity, given that most officers are very young and in their first jobs?

— What lessons can Harvard learn from past admissions decisions, both from those admitted and those not admitted? We’ve been told there has been a belief at Harvard that you “can’t learn from the past” in admissions by evaluating student outcomes versus admission evaluations—this needs to change.

As President Bacow stated following last year’s Supreme Court decision on admissions, “debate and disagreement, diversity and difference are essential to academic excellence.” We believe this wholeheartedly. As we’ve said before, we believe all types of diversity, including intellectual and demographic diversity, are deeply valuable as inputs that drive the ultimate mission of the university: academic excellence in pursuit of Veritas. Harvard should pursue diversity by casting the widest possible net to find individuals of all backgrounds and beliefs who advance this excellence — it needs an admissions process that truly reflects these values.

If you’ve been involved in the admissions process, for example, as an alumni interviewer, please reach out with any thoughts—we’d love to hear from you.

FYIs:

HARVARD ANTISEMITISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA TASK FORCES RELEASE PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS
On Wednesday, Harvard’s presidential task forces to combat antisemitism and anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias released their preliminary recommendations. The reports found widespread discrimination based on identity and political views. The antisemitism task force recommended Harvard publicly condemn antisemitism, improve transparency in handling related complaints, and ensure staff understand the disciplinary consequences of such behavior. They also suggested incorporating antisemitism awareness in orientation programs and enhancing support for Jewish life on campus. The anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias task force recommended improving safety measures and counseling services, expanding curricular offerings in Palestinian studies, and renaming the task force to include anti-Palestinian bias. They urged Harvard to reaffirm its commitment to free expression, enhance prayer spaces for Muslim students, and improve transparency in bias-related complaint processes. Interim President Alan Garber said the university would begin to review and implement the reports’ recommendations over the summer.

HARVARD AND NONPROFIT LEADERS REACT TO TASK FORCE PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS
In response to the antisemitism task force’s preliminary recommendations, Harvard Hillel Executive Director Rabbi Jason Rubenstein (AB ‘04) called for swift implementation of both the task force’s and Hillel’s proposals. He emphasized that the recommendations are a starting point needing Harvard leadership’s acceptance. Rubenstein outlined additional measures Harvard should take: requiring neutrality from those in teaching and student-support roles, publicly reporting Title VI complaints, reaching out to concerned Jewish high school seniors, and covering security costs for Jewish students at Hillel. In an Instagram post, Harvard Chabad’s Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi extensively criticized the antisemitism report and called for Harvard centers “that essentially function like Hamas or Palestinian embassies” like the Center for Middle East Studies to be shut down or rebuilt. Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was dismayed by both reports: “All this comes off of efforts to change the definition of antisemitism,” he said. “There is hostility toward anti-Zionist groups; that’s not to be underestimated.”

GSAS PLACES 10 STUDENTS ON PROBATION FOR ENCAMPMENT PARTICIPATION
The Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Ad Board put 10 graduate students on probation for participating in the Harvard Yard encampment this spring, according to Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP), the group that led the encampment. Previously, the College Ad Board suspended five students who participated in the encampments and put more than 20 students on probation, including the 13 seniors who were not allowed to graduate on time. According to HOOP, the other graduate schools besides GSAS did not sanction students involved in the encampment. It’s unclear how many students from those other schools were. The official university spokesperson declined to comment on Ad Board cases.

DARTMOUTH PRESIDENT CREDITS CIVIL DIALOGUE AND CLEAR PROTEST POLICIES FOR SUCCESS
At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Dartmouth President Sian Beilock attributed the college’s success to fostering civil dialogue and clear policies on protests, which prevented any encampments longer than a few hours. Dartmouth's proactive approach included organizing public forums and offering a course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict co-taught by an Israeli professor and a former Egyptian diplomat who worked on the Middle East peace process. Beilock emphasized the importance of not using the university's endowment for political purposes. She also recommitted to political diversity on campus after noting, “We haven’t been good enough about making sure we have voices across the political spectrum on campus in enough of a way that allows them to constantly be practicing having these difficult conversations across difference.”

SUMMERS: UNIVERSITIES MUST CLARIFY SCHOLARS' VIEWS DON'T REPRESENT INSTITUTIONS
At the Aspen Ideas Festival, University Professor and President Emeritus Larry Summers (PhD ‘82) argued that academics who say “offensively antisemitic things” can still be “great scholars,” but universities must clarify that these individuals do not speak for the institution. He emphasized that trustees, as the ultimate fiduciaries, have largely failed in this responsibility. Summers believes universities should provide intellectual frameworks for future leaders and generate ideas, not dictate specific social changes. He subtly criticized Maurie McInnis, the new president of Yale, for her recent opening statement to Yale framing the role of universities as driving social change. Summers called it a fundamental misunderstanding of a university's purpose.

ALUM CALLS FOR COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT OF HARVARD GOVERNANCE
In the HLS Corporate Governance Forum, John Wilcox (AB ‘64, LLB ‘68), Chairman Emeritus of corporate governance firm Morrow Sodali, calls for a comprehensive assessment of Harvard's governance, guided by principles of responsibility, accountability, fairness, and transparency. Among the questions he suggests assessing are: What criteria are used in the selection of Harvard Fellows – does the corporation use a matrix of expertise and skills to evaluate candidates? Are there explicit charter provisions, fiduciary standards and accountability mechanisms applicable to the Fellows? Is there an effort to bring independent thinking into boardroom deliberations? And most important, do the Fellows support greater transparency that would clarify their stewardship and explain the rationale for their policy decisions?

INCOMING HKS DEAN TO PRIORITIZE TECH-POLITICS AND STATE-LOCAL FOCUS
Incoming HKS Dean Jeremy Weinstein (AM ‘01, PhD ‘03) plans to focus on the intersection of technology and politics, citing policymakers’ lack of understanding in this area. At an alumni event in San Francisco, he emphasized the importance of state and local politics. He aims to shift the school's curriculum accordingly. Weinstein acknowledged the challenges ahead due to geopolitical tensions and the election, stressing the Kennedy School's role in facilitating difficult conversations.

AMHERST REJECTS DIVESTMENT DUE TO COMMUNITY DIVISION AND PRACTICAL ISSUES
The Board of Trustees of Amherst College decided not to divest from companies supplying military equipment to Israel, despite requests from faculty, students, and alumni. The Board cited deep divisions within the Amherst community, with strong opinions both for and against divestment, and the practical difficulties of such an action. They emphasized their responsibility to consider the broad range of perspectives and maintain the college’s educational mission. The Board explained that its past divestment actions on apartheid in South Africa and genocide in Sudan were because of “clear agreement in our community, supported by a consensus of the federal government and international organizations.”

June 21, 2024 — Punishing Faculty for Criticizing Harvard Is a Threat to Academic Freedom

THE BIG IDEA: PUNISHING FACULTY FOR CRITICIZING HARVARD IS A THREAT TO ACADEMIC FREEDOM

On Saturday, Dean of Social Science Lawrence Bobo published an op-ed in The Crimson arguing that faculty who criticize Harvard publicly should face disciplinary action since their criticism could “incite external actors.” Bobo’s proposal was rightly immediately rebuked by faculty of all political opinions as a threat to academic freedom, from Professor of History Walter Johnson, who was police liaison to the encampment participants, to President Emeritus and University Professor Larry Summers. Even Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic noted the irony: “Harvard Dean Lawrence D. Bobo's op-ed has incited me, an external actor, to publicly lament the subset of Harvard leaders who neither understand nor support free speech. By his logic, I guess he needs to be sanctioned.”

Leaders of Harvard's Council on Academic Freedom wrote in their Crimson rebuttal: “It is downright alarming that such a stunning argument would come from a dean who currently wields power over hundreds of professors — without indicating that he would refrain from implementing his views by punishing the faculty he oversees.” They called on FAS Dean Hopi Hoekstra to “clarify that Dean Bobo’s prescriptions are not Division policy and that he is committed to not implementing them.”

Hoekstra still has not rebuffed the idea, and on Wednesday, Summers posted on X: “I cannot understand why his boss Dean Hopi Hoekstra has not condemned the idea. Nor can I understand how someone who believes in punishing dissent can be allowed to set faculty salaries, decide on promotions, or be involved in faculty discipline.” The 1636 Forum agrees: now more than ever, Harvard needs academic freedom to ensure it moves in the right direction—towards its north star of Veritas.

UPDATE TO THE GUIDE TO GIVING EFFECTIVELY TO HARVARD: 10 CONSIDERATIONS ON HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR DONATIONS

Last week, the 1636 Forum published our Guide to Giving Effectively to Harvard. We've been encouraged by the engagement and response to the guide. This week, we've updated it with 10 considerations on how to structure your donations to internal Harvard initiatives while ensuring your gift aligns with your intent. Supporting areas like the Council on Academic Freedom is essential to preserving Harvard’s commitment to Veritas and protecting the free exchange of ideas.

FYIs:

HARVARD FACULTY GROUP FORMS AAUP CHAPTER TO ADDRESS GOVERNANCE
Harvard faculty have formed a chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Co-presidents Professor of History Kirsten Weld and HLS Professor Ryan Doerfler (PhD ‘11, JD ‘13) highlighted concerns, including lack of faculty input and donor influence. This new chapter aims to push for a stronger role in decision-making and its leaders are also leading the charge to create a University-wide faculty senate. The chapter’s leadership, which includes outspoken progressive professors, plans to broadly recruit faculty and collaborate with existing unions to advocate for shared governance and academic freedom.

STANFORD RELEASES ANTISEMITISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA TASK FORCE REPORTS
Stanford task forces released reports on antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias. The antisemitism report documented widespread issues like threats, intimidation, and vandalism, including tearing down mezuzahs (scrolls with Torah verses affixed to doorposts). The anti-Muslim bias report highlighted over 50 incidents of Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Arab bias, including threats, harassment, and restrictions on pro-Palestinian expression. Stanford’s antisemitism report recommended eventually replacing DEI with Harvard University Professor Danielle Allen (PhD ‘01)'s "confident pluralism" framework, promoting diverse viewpoints through dialogue and mutual respect (explained in her HAA talk here). In contrast, the Islamophobia report urged Stanford to double down on DEI and reject the adoption of a civil discourse framework, including recommending that Stanford not use “students performing their capacity for ‘civil discourse’” in admissions decisions. Both reports called for clear rules, equal enforcement, and more discourse on the Middle East conflict.

June 14, 2024 — How To Give Effectively to Harvard

THE BIG IDEA: HOW TO GIVE EFFECTIVELY TO HARVARD

It’s no secret Harvard donations have dropped since the fall. Many of us are hesitant to give until campus conditions improve. While withholding donations is one approach, strategic giving can help steer Harvard back on track by supporting initiatives aligned with our core principles: refocusing on academic excellence and Veritas, improving governance, academic free speech, and student safety. The Council on Academic Freedom, for instance, played a pivotal role in Harvard's new institutional neutrality policy and could benefit from financial support.

To assist, we've started a Guide to Giving at Harvard, highlighting where your contributions can make an impact and how to screen and restrict your gifts. We've also listed external organizations that advance our principles and can use your support if you prefer not to donate directly to Harvard. We'll keep updating this guide, so please share your feedback and ideas.

For personalized gift planning or suggestions, contact us at [email protected].

Events:

– The HBS Club of New York is hosting, “Academic Freedom and University Governance: Lessons from Harvard and Others in the World of Universities,” a virtual talk with Harvard Professor of China Studies and HBS Professor of Business Administration William Kirby (AM ‘74, PhD ‘81) on June 18 from 6-7 p.m. ET. Kirby will discuss the challenges of university governance, academic freedom, and the current crises in American universities, including Harvard, focusing on the rise of higher education in the U.S. and the threats posed by China and other countries. Register here.

FYIs:

HARVARD SENIOR: NATIONAL SCRUINITY STIFILES CENTRIST OPINIONS ON CAMPUS
In Harvard Magazine, Aden Barton (AB ‘24) explains that intense national and media scrutiny on Harvard discourages students from exploring new ideas, leading to self-censorship and political segregation. Fear of politicization and career repercussions means the political discourse on campus is dominated by students at far ends of the political spectrum and lacks centrist opinions. It also affects social life, with 60% of very progressive seniors in 2023 reporting that most of their friends shared the same opinions. To counteract this, Barton emphasizes the importance of a culture where students can experiment with ideas without permanent judgment and urges centrist students to speak up, as collective courage can mitigate individual risks.

WSJ OP-ED: HARVARD’S ENDOWMENT MUST BE NEUTRAL TOO
In “Harvard Goes Only Halfway Toward Institutional Neutrality” (WSJ), Daniel Diermeier, Chancellor of Vanderbilt and former UChicago professor, argues that Harvard's new institutional neutrality policy does not go far enough. Diermeier believes that neutrality should also extend to university investments, criticizing politically driven divestments, such as demands for Harvard to cut ties with companies doing business with Israel, as violations of this principle. While he sees Harvard's policy of refraining from public statements on controversial issues as a positive step, Diermeier emphasizes that the policy must also include investment decisions to fully uphold institutional neutrality and prevent universities from becoming political battlegrounds.

DAVID BROOKS: EDUCATED ELITES’ DISCONNECTION FROM WORKING-CLASS CONCERNS TIED TO CAMPUS UNREST
In his NYT column, David Brooks highlights how elite progressivism has pushed elite universities, like Harvard, sharply left, with campus protests like those over Gaza mostly occurring at these institutions. Brooks notes that these protests are rare at schools with many lower-income students. He illustrates his point that “progressives have created places where they never have to encounter beliefs other than their own” by citing that 82 percent of progressive seniors at Harvard say that all or almost all of their close friends share their political opinions. Brooks criticizes elite progressivism as performative and disconnected from working-class concerns, warning that without reform, the educated elite risks backlash from a broad alliance against its influence.

NEW EXEC DIRECTOR OF HARVARD HILLEL DISCUSSES THE FUTURE OF JEWISH COMMUNITY ON CAMPUS
Harvard Hillel’s new Executive Director Jason Rubenstein (AB '04) and board co-chairs Adina Astor (AB '93, MBA '98) and Lavea Brachman (AB '04) discussed the direction of and priorities of the organization on a Zoom call on Sunday. Watch the recording here.

PBS FRONTLINE RELEASES DOCUMENTARY ON CAMPUS TENSIONS
PBS FRONTLINE’s “Crisis on Campus” documentary aired this week. FRONTLINE and Retro Report interviewed people on all sides of the college campus protest divide and key people in Washington, D.C, to understand how universities have responded to campus tensions. Watch the hour-long documentary on YouTube.

CORNELL COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS FOCUS ON ACADEMIC, CIVIL ENGAGEMENT OVER ACTIVISM
Cornell president Martha Pollack, set to step down on July 1, released recommendations from an external advisory committee assessing the university's handling of antisemitism, anti-Muslim, and other forms of hatred. The committee proposed nine actions, including new student orientation programs, education on various definitions of antisemitism (IHRA, U.S. National Strategy, NEXUS, and Jerusalem Declaration), and investments in academic programs. These recommendations emphasize academic and civil engagement over activist, protest-based approaches.

WAPO OP-ED: UNIVERSITY DISHONESTY IN DEI PRACTICES DAMAGED CREDIBILITY
In "Don’t blame the Supreme Court for universities’ stunning reversal on DEI" (Washington Post), Megan McArdle argues that while diversity is important, the dishonesty of universities in admissions and hiring practices has damaged institutional credibility. She states, "When your job is to seek truths and transmit them to the world, a minor reputation for lying is a major problem." McArdle concludes that changes like Harvard FAS’s and MIT’s elimination of DEI statements are positive: "A strong society requires strong truth-seeking institutions — and strong truth-telling ones, too."

STEVEN PINKER WARNS OF HARVARD SELF-CENSORSHIP AND CULTURE OF VICTIMHOOD
On the We The 66 podcast, Harvard Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker (PhD ‘79) discusses how our society has shifted from a culture of dignity to one of victimhood and highlights the widespread self-censorship at Harvard, where even top professors are hesitant to express their views. He warns that this trend will lead to collective delusion and erode trust in institutions.

June 7, 2024 — FAS Eliminated DEI Statements, the Rest of Harvard Should Too

THE BIG IDEA: FAS ELIMINATED DEI STATEMENTS, THE REST OF HARVARD SHOULD TOO

On Monday, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) dropped the requirement for diversity statements in faculty hiring and promotion. Instead, finalists will need to submit a service statement on their “efforts to strengthen academic communities” and a teaching statement on fostering a “learning environment in which students are encouraged to ask questions and share their ideas.” Previously, all candidates had to submit a diversity, inclusion, and belonging statement.

FAS Dean for Faculty Affairs and Planning Nina Zipser (PhD ‘00) cited faculty feedback as the reason for eliminating diversity statements, highlighting that they were too narrow and confusing, especially for international candidates. Harvard's statement on the change explained that the "updated approach" acknowledges “the many ways faculty contribute to strengthening their academic communities, including efforts to increase diversity, inclusion, and belonging,” and realigns "the hiring process with longstanding criteria for tenured and tenure-track faculty positions.” When MIT eliminated diversity statements last month, President Sally Kornbluth explained MIT’s rationale differently: “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”

Harvard FAS’s change is significant for three reasons:

1. It encourages open inquiry: As argued in the 1636 Forum’s May 10th newsletter , DEI statements because they often stifle viewpoint diversity and open inquiry, rather than ensuring diversity and inclusion contribute to academic excellence. The problems with DEI statements have been recognized by professors across the political spectrum, including liberal HLS Professor Randall Kennedy, who wrote in a Crimson op-ed that DEI statements are “inimical to an intellectually healthy university environment.”

2. It refocuses the university on academic excellence: By requiring the new statements only from finalists, rather than all candidates, academic merit becomes the first filter for hiring.

3. It sets the tone for American universities: Harvard’s actions matter because it is a beacon in higher education. As the NYT article, “Is This the End for Mandatory D.E.I. Statements?” concludes , “Harvard and M.I.T. are two Goliaths in this space. And where they go, many universities will follow.” Just today, Stanford reinstated standardized testing requirements, following Harvard's reinstatement announced in early April.

Harvard’s other faculties should follow suit. The schools of business, law, government, medicine, dental medicine, public health, education, design, and divinity should fully commit to Harvard's mission and hire accordingly.

Events:

– Harvard Hillel is hosting “The Present and Future of Jewish Life at Harvard,” a Zoom talk on June 9 at 7 p.m. ET. Harvard Hillel board co-chairs Adina Astor (AB '93, MBA '98) and Lavea Brachman (AB '04) will discuss with Harvard Hillel's new Executive Director Jason Rubenstein (AB '04) the direction of and priorities of the organization, including questions like “what can concerned alumni and parents do to help?” Register here .

– FIRE is hosting a Free Press Workshop on June 15 in Philadelphia, PA. The free workshop will bring together student journalists from across the country to learn how to assert their right to press freedom. This event is open to current students, including graduate students, at U.S. universities. Register here .

– The HBS Club of New York is hosting, “Academic Freedom and University Governance: Lessons from Harvard and Others in the World of Universities,” a virtual talk with Harvard Professor of China Studies and HBS Professor of Business Administration William Kirby (AM ‘74, PhD ‘81) on June 18 from 6-7 p.m. ET. Kirby will discuss the challenges of university governance, academic freedom, and the current crises in American universities, including Harvard, focusing on the rise of higher education in the U.S. and the threats posed by China and other countries. Register here .

FYIs:

FAS ELIMINATES DIVERSITY STATEMENTS IN HIRING

Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences will no longer require diversity statements for faculty hiring, citing concerns about their narrow scope and potential confusion for international candidates. Instead, finalists must now submit service and teaching statements on strengthening academic communities and fostering open learning environments. This move follows MIT's similar decision . The 1636 Forum has advocated for Harvard to eliminate diversity statements in hiring because they often stifle viewpoint diversity and open inquiry, rather than ensuring diversity and inclusion contribute to academic excellence.

FAS, GSD, HDS VOTE TO FORM PLANNING BODY FOR FACULTY SENATE

Three Harvard faculties – FAS, the Graduate School of Design, and the Divinity School – voted to form a planning body for a University-wide faculty senate, aiming to enhance faculty involvement in decision-making. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences' support signals a significant shift, though dissent remains, including from Dean of Social Science Lawrence Bobo, who previously published a Crimson op-ed opposing the proposed senate. Other faculties will decide in the fall, with broad participation expected.

JEWISH AND PALESTINIAN PROFESSORS CO-TEACH COLUMBIA CLASS

CBS News interviewed Ari Goldman, a Zionist Jewish professor, and Gregory Khalil, a Palestinian professor, who co-teach a Columbia Graduate School of Journalism class on covering the complexities of religion and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Amid the campus turmoil this year, their goal was to teach students to listen respectfully to differing viewpoints and to cover all aspects of the conflict with journalistic objectivity and empathy.

PROF. SUK GERSEN: WHY ENCAMPMENT DISCIPLINE MIGHT FEEL LIKE A DOUBLE STANDARD

In The New Yorker, HLS Professor Jeannie Suk Gersen (JD ‘02) addresses the concerns of a “Palestine exception” in disciplinary actions for the Yard encampment, compared to the 2011 Occupy protests. She points out two key changes since 2011: administrators now often resort to punishment first, especially since the 2010s when tackling campus sex discrimination and harassment became urgent; and universities' commitment to free speech has weakened as liberal students increasingly fear it could harm marginalized groups.

CONGRESS INVESTIGATES HARVARD'S FEDERAL FUNDING OVER ANTISEMITISM CONCERNS

Six congressional committees, led by House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, will investigate Harvard’s $676 million in federal funding as part of a probe into campus antisemitism. They warned that not ensuring a safe learning environment could be a grave dereliction of Harvard’s responsibilities. The committees may consider revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status or federal funding, though this could face legal challenges for bypassing the Department of Education, which has ongoing investigations into allegations of antisemitism and anti-Arab bias.

COLUMBIA SETTLES WITH JEWISH STUDENT TO ENHANCE CAMPUS SAFETY AMID PROTESTS

Columbia reached a settlement with a Jewish student, agreeing to enhance campus safety amid protests over the Middle East. The agreement includes appointing a Safe Passage Liaison to handle safety concerns and coordinate 24/7 student escort services. It also provides academic accommodations for students unable to access campus and says that Columbia will “continue to work to facilitate opportunities for students and faculty to engage in safe, courteous, and constructive dialogue on the important issues that have been raised in recent months” and will not obstruct students' efforts to organize public debates on campus. Seth Mandel of Commentary magazine described the outcome as “Columbia has settled a civil-rights lawsuit by declaring its campus separate-but-equal.”

PROF. KAREN THORNBER NAMED NEW DIRECTOR OF DEREK BOK CENTER

Professor of Literature and East Asian Studies Karen Thornber (PhD ‘06) has been appointed the new Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. She will be the first permanent appointment for the role in the last four years. In an interview with the Harvard Gazette , Thornber said the university must “re-center academics and more actively promote intellectual exploration” in response to a “genuine and existential threat” faced by higher education. The 1636 Forum previously highlighted the Bok Center in our May 10th newsletter arguing for the elimination of DEI statements in faculty hiring since the Bok Center coaches applicants who are writing DEI statements to discuss the "theories and approaches" that inform their teaching, including "critical inclusive pedagogy, anti-racist pedagogy, decolonial pedagogy, [and] feminist pedagogy..."

HARVARD YARD REOPENS AFTER MONTH-LONG CLOSURE, SECURITY MEASURES REMAIN

Harvard Yard reopened to the public on Wednesday after being closed for nearly a month following the Yard encampment and to prevent disruptions to Commencement and Alumni Day ceremonies. Enhanced security measures will remain in place despite the reopening.

HARVARD STUDENT: SOME ON CAMPUS STILL SUPPORT HDS PROCTOR FACING CHARGES

In his Wall Street Journal op-ed, Charlie Covit (AB ‘27) spotlights Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, a Divinity School student removed as a freshman dorm proctor after allegedly assaulting an Israeli student during an October protest. Despite facing two misdemeanor charges, Tettey-Tamaklo has strong support from pro-Palestinian groups on campus, including from a group of faculty who have called his firing “racist.”

May 31, 2024 — A TL;DR on Harvard's New Institutional Voice Policy

THE BIG IDEA: A TL;DR ON HARVARD’S NEW INSTITUTIONAL VOICE POLICY

Harvard's adoption this week of a more neutral institutional voice is a great step forward. You can learn more by reading the official announcement, the Institutional Voice Working Group’s Report on Institutional Voice in the University, and the Harvard Gazette Q&A with the Working Group Co-Chairs, professors Noah Feldman and Alison Simmons.

Here’s a summary of the policy change and what we believe should happen next.

1. What is Harvard's new policy?
On Tuesday, Harvard adopted the Institutional Voice Working Group's recommendations and report. The adoption was supported unanimously by Interim President Alan Garber, Interim Provost John Manning, the deans of all Harvard schools, and the Harvard Corporation. The new policy states that Harvard will no longer issue public statements on social or political issues unless the issues are tied to Harvard's core academic mission. The policy’s goal is to focus Harvard on its core function of fostering open inquiry, teaching, and research. The report recommends this policy apply to “the president, provost, and all deans as well as heads of departments, centers, and programs; it should also in principle extend to university governing boards and faculty bodies (such as faculty councils and the faculties of schools and departments acting collectively).”

2. What are examples of issues that Harvard would still speak out on?
Harvard will speak out on issues directly related to its core function, such as when “outside forces seek to determine what students the university can admit, what subjects it can teach, or which research it supports.” The report states that Harvard must also address issues directly relevant to its operation. In an interview with the New York Times, Feldman provided two examples: Harvard could oppose a proposal by former President Trump to tax large university endowments, as this issue falls within Harvard's core function, and it could advocate for affirmative action in the courts, since admissions policy is central to the university.

3. Where might this new policy still need improvement?
The Report on Institutional Voice in the University begins with a reaffirmation of Harvard’s north star of Veritas: “The purpose of the university is to pursue truth.” The 1636 Forum has long supported achieving this goal through institutional neutrality as exemplified by UChicago’s Kalven Report. While Harvard's new policy largely aligns with UChicago’s, there are some differences and some potential shortcomings:

– Rationale for Neutrality: Feldman contrasts Harvard’s report with UChicago’s by saying one “big difference is our reason for restraint, which is based on speaking where we are experts and not speaking where the University as an institution isn’t expert.”

– Language of Neutrality: Harvard rejects the term “institutional neutrality,” arguing it can't be neutral in pursuing its academic mission. As Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker points out, this could just be Harvard’s attempt to claim the concept as its own, but there are some substantive differences in how the report treats the concept of neutrality as well.

– Defense of the University’s Core Function: Harvard's policy allows defending its core function and academic freedom, similar to the Kalven Report, but with a more pointed approach to specific threats. The report says, “Let us be clear: the university is not a neutral institution. It values open inquiry, expertise, and diverse points of view, for these are the means through which it pursues truth. The policy of speaking officially only on matters directly related to the university’s core function, not beyond, serves those values.” If not used judiciously, this selective engagement risks undermining true neutrality.

– Investment Decisions: Divestment was outside the scope of Harvard’s institutional voice report, but the committee acknowledged the need for a separate initiative for clear principles. UChicago uses the Kalven Report to say the university should avoid divestment decisions, viewing them as political.

4. What about the Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group?
While the Institutional Voice Working Group has made progress on changing policy, much work remains to shift campus culture. The Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group is charged with fostering a culture of open inquiry at Harvard. They are considering teaching methods, campus experiences, and tools to support the free exchange of ideas and robust debate, helping the community engage productively with opposing viewpoints. Harvard has not yet announced the timeline of the working group’s report.

5. What’s next?
Harvard will need to operationalize this new policy, ensuring that it is understood and followed across all levels of the university. As The Crimson editorial board notes, “Taken to its extreme, we can imagine how the exception for the defense of higher education could come to enfold just about any social or political issue.” The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf is understandably skeptical of Harvard’s ability to maintain neutrality through Election Day in November. The 1636 Forum will monitor how the policy is applied and give feedback to help Harvard stay focused on its core mission.

Events:

– Harvard Hillel is hosting “The Present and Future of Jewish Life at Harvard,” a Zoom talk on June 9 at 7 p.m. ET. Harvard Hillel board co-chairs Adina Astor (AB '93, MBA '98) and Lavea Brachman (AB '04) will discuss with Harvard Hillel's new Executive Director Jason Rubenstein (AB '04) the direction of and priorities of the organization, including questions like “what can concerned alumni and parents do to help?” Register here.

– FIRE is hosting a Free Press Workshop on June 15 in Philadelphia, PA. The free workshop will bring together student journalists from across the country to learn how to assert their right to press freedom. This event is open to current students, including graduate students, at U.S. universities. Register here.

FYIs:

HARVARD’S NEW POLICY: SPEAK LESS, FOCUS MORE
Harvard will now limit official statements to issues directly tied to its core academic mission, per recommendations from the Institutional Voice Working Group, led by HLS professor Noah Feldman (AB ‘92) and Professor of Philosophy Alison Simmons. The new policy doesn’t fully align with UChicago’s version of institutional neutrality, the most well-known example, but underscores the need to defend academic values and promote free inquiry, teaching, and research: “Let us be clear: the university is not a neutral institution. It values open inquiry, expertise, and diverse points of view, for these are the means through which it pursues truth. The policy of speaking officially only on matters directly related to the university’s core function, not beyond, serves those values.” “Harvard isn’t a government. It shouldn’t have a foreign policy or a domestic policy,” Feldman stated in his and Simmons’ Q&A with the Harvard Gazette. The Crimson editorial board called upon the university to clarify its divestment policies and what topics it will still make statements on.

YALE NAMES MAURIE MCINNIS ITS NEW PRESIDENT
Yale has appointed Maurie McInnis, currently president of Stony Brook University and trustee of Yale, as its first permanent female president, succeeding Peter Salovey in July. McInnis, who holds a PhD from Yale in History of Art, has received accolades for her academic work on the politics of art and slavery in the 19th century American South. McInnis faced and survived a faculty senate censure vote at Stony Brook for requesting authorities to arrest campus protesters, a decision she defended by emphasizing the need for order once the protesters refused to disperse. The search committee selected McInnis after a nine-month search during which it gathered input from thousands of Yale students, faculty, staff, alumni, and New Haven community members through listening sessions, individual meetings, webform entries, and a student survey. The committee received nominations for 128 leaders in higher education and other sectors.

UPENN PROFS: RESTORE AMERICAN HIGHER ED BY STUDYING THE GREAT BOOKS
In a New York Times op-ed, UPenn professors Ezekiel Emanuel (MD ‘88, PhD ‘89) and Harun Küçük argued that the real issue in American higher ed is a misunderstanding of higher education’s role. Historically, American colleges focused on liberal arts, fostering critical thinking and democratic citizenship, but this focus has eroded. To fix this, they argue that universities should revive a shared liberal arts curriculum through Great Books, best discussed in small seminars to boost intellectual curiosity, critical reasoning, empathy, and civic responsibility, countering today’s shallow, polarized discourse.

HBS LEADERSHIP HOSTS ONLINE FORUM FOR ALUMS ON ACTIONS SINCE 10/7
On May 17, HBS Dean Srikant Datar and HBS Alumni Board President Andreas Stavropoulos (AB ‘92, SM ‘92, MBA ‘97) hosted an online forum to update alumni on actions taken since October 7. They were joined by the co-chairs of the Antisemitism and the Islamophobia and Anti-Arabism Working Groups as well as Jana Kierstead, Executive Director, MBA and Doctoral Programs and External Relations, and Professor Matthew Weinzierl (AB ‘00, AM ‘06, PhD ‘08), Senior Associate Dean and Chair, MBA Program. The panel addressed over 300 pre-submitted questions, highlighting curriculum reviews, expanded training, and new student advisory councils.

HJAA AND HBSJAA ENDORSE MARC SHARPE FOR 2025 OVERSEER NOMINATION
The Harvard Jewish Alumni Association (HJAA) and the HBS Jewish Alumni Association (HBSJAA) are asking their members to submit nominations for Marc Sharpe (MBA ‘98) to the HAA Nominating Committee for the 2025 Overseer ballot. Sharpe is the former President and Board Member of the Harvard Business School Club of Houston and founder of the HBS Houston Alumni Angels. He has worked in the investment industry for over 30 years, is an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University, and served for over 10 years on the Board of the Holocaust Museum Houston. Any alum can submit a nomination for Overseer or HAA Director by today, May 31, 2024, using this form.

HEAD OF FAS COMMUNICATIONS RESIGNS AFTER FOUR MONTHS
Holly Jensen resigned as FAS Associate Dean for Communications after less than four months, marking the second consecutive summer FAS lacks a chief communications officer. FAS Dean Hopi Hoekstra praised Jensen's leadership during a tough semester and announced that her chief of staff, Nina Collins (MTS ‘00), will support the communications team in the interim.

BRANDEIS CENTER SUES HARVARD FOR IGNORING ANTISEMITISM
The Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education have sued Harvard, accusing it of ignoring antisemitism and creating a hostile environment for Jewish students. The lawsuit centers on alleged antisemitism by HKS lecturer Marshall Ganz (AB ‘64, MPA ‘93, PhD ‘00) and a confrontation at a "die-in" protest at HBS. The plaintiffs claim Harvard is more lenient on antisemitism compared to other forms of discrimination, citing inadequate responses to these incidents.

May 24, 2024 — Pritzker's Presidential Mulligan and How To Secure Harvard's Future

THE BIG IDEA: PRITZKER’S PRESIDENTIAL MULLIGAN AND HOW TO SECURE HARVARD’S FUTURE

The Crimson’s commencement edition featured the following op-ed by Sam Lessin (AB ‘05).

After the shortest presidential search in at least 70 years, the Harvard Corporation, led by Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker, selected Claudine Gay to be Harvard’s next president. Somewhat poetically, this short search led to the shortest tenure of any Harvard president in the 400-year history of the University.

In a bid to help the University do better, I ran a last-minute campaign to try to get on the ballot for the Harvard Board of Overseers, the only body with real power to check the Corporation.

While I received just shy of one percent of all alums to write me in for the ballot — more than any other write-in candidate this year — it wasn’t quite enough to get on the ballot after the University substantially raised the signature threshold in 2016

However, my campaign brought me in personal contact with hundreds of alums who care deeply about the university and are worried. Indeed, 20,000 people now receive our weekly newsletter from the 1636 Forum, an organization I created to inform and organize alumni around helping the University refocus on academics over politics and improve its governance.

Having run to become an Overseer and, now, having spent months engaging with alumni on the issues facing Harvard, I’ve learned much about how Harvard should proceed.

As the academic year comes to a close, the Corporation turns to perhaps its highest-stakes presidential search in modern times.

Given the Corporation’s insular and secretive nature, it is hard to say exactly what went wrong with the last presidential search process. As a general rule, the Corporation reaches decisions by consensus and almost never issues statements, leaving most external analysis to guesswork and hearsay. Even as it has erred seriously and repeatedly over the past year, the governing body has been unwilling to publicly explain its errors or offer any sort of apology or contrition.

Still, what we know about the failed process that picked Claudine Gay raises serious concerns about the one that will pick her successor.

First, we know that the process was rushed. The Corporation claimed to review 600 nominations fully in just five months — a seemingly impossible task — and if they did, they did it alone: Unlike most other universities, the Corporation does not formally use outside executive firms for their presidential searches, instead keeping the work ‘in the family.’

We know that the highlight of Pritzker’s career thus far has been her role as United States Secretary of Commerce in the Obama administration. I have spoken with many influential Harvard alums who believe she was motivated in her presidential choice primarily by a desire to use her position leading Harvard to create a second ‘Obama’ moment. Rather than focusing on choosing someone who exemplifies excellence with a remarkable ability to lead, many believe, she decided to make history by handpicking the University’s first Black president.

Finally, we know now that, with the sheen stripped off the job and a host of obvious challenges ahead for the next president, it is unclear which serious, qualified academics will even want to take on the position.

Here is what needs to happen to make this presidential search successful, and help the University forward.

First, the Corporation needs to publicly and fully recommit itself and the University to putting academic excellence above all else — and find a president who will doggedly drive the University towards that goal.

Harvard has been a durable and important institution for hundreds of years by focusing on academics, but in recent times, it has started to prioritize other ideals. In admissions and hiring, for example, it has treated representation of different communities as an end in itself rather than simply looking for excellence wherever it might be found.

This ‘multi-bottom-line’ approach is simply unsustainable.

Among many other problems, it places far too much power in the hands of a few leaders and at the whims of individual administrators and governors to trade goals based on their personal politics.

Second, the Corporation needs to change its communications approach and bring stakeholders along rather than operating in secrecy, including by finding a president adept in modern communications.

You simply cannot lead a modern complex organization in secrecy. With so many stakeholders and so much pressure, the only way to lead is with openness and transparency.

When you make a mistake, you own it. You explain what went wrong and how to do better. When you have to make an unpopular or challenging decision, you communicate broadly and honestly the sides of the argument and why you are choosing, on balance, the course of action you are. When you err, you are willing to say “I am sorry’” and “I made a mistake.”

Third, the Corporation needs to revise the criteria for selecting new members of their body and the Overseers to guarantee that the incentives of those in charge are aligned with success for the University and support for the right president now and in the future.

In many cases, the real way you become a member of the Harvard Corporation is that you donate a lot of money — Pritzker has given nine figures — and schmooze the existing Corporation members.

The way you become an Overseer is to be extremely involved as a booster of the school and administration via the Harvard Alumni Association and then campaign hard with the approximately 10 percent of alums that vote in the election.

When the governors are selected this way, you frequently get people who are interested in the trappings of Harvard, and perhaps leveraging the brand for their own political and social ambitions — not those seriously committed to improving the school. You don’t get people willing to make unpopular calls or invest the time and effort to enact challenging reforms.

None of these reforms will be easy, because the entire structure of Harvard’s governance is designed to reject outside feedback, and self-reform is perhaps the hardest reform of all.

But for the sake of Harvard, we have to hope the Corporation will do just that. Selecting the right president is the first step; fixing Harvard’s broken governance is the next.

1636 Forum Feature:

Sam Lessin (AB ‘05) and John Tomasi, President of Heterodox Academy and former Brown University professor, recorded a conversation about Harvard’s history and the path back to putting open inquiry and academic excellence first at American universities. Watch and listen on YouTube here .

FYIs:

CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD: HARVARD’S NEXT PRESIDENT MUST REFOCUS ON THE ACADEMIC MISSION

In its editorial in The Crimson’s commencement edition, The Crimson Editorial Board urges Harvard to prioritize academics over social activism in its presidential search , concurring with the commencement edition op-eds of Sam Lessin (AB ‘05) and University Professor and former Harvard President Larry Summers (PhD ‘82). The Crimson Editorial Board argues recent emphasis on social issues has distracted from education and research. They call for a president committed to academic excellence who can clearly communicate this focus and rebuild trust. The Board also recommends a transparent search process involving students and faculty. Reasserting academic priorities, they believe, will ultimately support Harvard's social mission by fostering public trust and producing well-educated graduates.

LARRY SUMMERS: HARVARD SHOULD FOCUS ON CORE MISSION, NOT POLITICAL ADVOCACY

In his op-ed in the commencement edition of The Crimson, University Professor and former Harvard President Larry Summers (PhD ‘82) reflects on the challenging academic year at Harvard, marked by antisemitism, leadership turmoil, and political pressures. He emphasizes the university's unique role in shaping the future through ideas, advocating for Harvard to focus on teaching and research rather than political advocacy . Summers argues that academic freedom should be preserved, but it must be balanced with community values and responsibilities. He urges the Harvard Corporation to maintain the university's core mission and to clarify that the institution should not engage in political issues.

HARVARD CORPORATION UPHOLDS AD BOARD ACTIONS DESPITE CONTROVERSY

The Ad Board reviewed the actions of encampment participants, who violated university rules despite multiple warnings of disciplinary consequences, and issued consequences, including suspensions, probation, and degree deferrals for graduating seniors . The Ad Board’s actions caused significant division on campus, with nearly 500 Harvard faculty and staff signing a letter condemning the sanctions as excessive and nearly 400 pro-Israel alumni and affiliates demanding significant consequences for the protesters and a strong condemnation of antisemitism from Harvard. A Monday vote by a subset of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) added 13 seniors back to the list of degrees recommended for conferral at Thursday’s commencement , challenging the Ad Board’s authority. The decision then moved to the Harvard Corporation and Board of Overseers for final resolution, with the Corporation ultimately siding with the Ad Board . The Corporation’s statement noted, “We fully support the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ stated intention to provide expedited review, at this time, of eligible requests for reconsideration or appeal. We will consider conferral of degrees promptly if, following the completion of all FAS processes, a student becomes eligible to receive a degree. ”

FAS SURVEY: FACULTY CALL FOR INSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY AMID ACADEMIC FREEDOM CONCERNS

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) expressed broad pessimism about academic freedom at the University in The Crimson’s annual survey. Over 70% of respondents support adopting a policy of institutional neutrality , arguing that political statements by the University restrict open debate. The survey highlighted internal issues like self-censorship and intolerance among students and faculty, suggesting Harvard has a long way to go in fostering a culture of free expression.

CRIMSON EDITORIAL BOARD CALLS FOR INSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY, CONSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUE

In another editorial in The Crimson’s commencement edition, The Crimson Editorial Board underscores the importance of free speech and open inquiry, noting how recent events—such as the Israel-Palestine conflict and doxxing incidents—have exacerbated tensions on campus. Agreeing with the results of The Crimson’s annual FAS faculty survey, the Editorial Board argues that Harvard's frequent, often divisive statements on political issues have worsened the situation, advocating instead for institutional neutrality to uphold academic freedom . Additionally, the board highlights the harmful effects of public shaming and online harassment, urging professors and students to engage in constructive, private dialogues .

COMMENCEMENT WALKOUT HIGHLIGHTS HARVARD'S ONGOING CAMPUS TENSIONS

More than 1,000 people, including graduates, staged a walkout during Harvard Commencement on Thursday to protest the university's decision to bar 13 students from graduating on time due to their participation in the Yard encampment . The walkout, marked by chants of "Let them walk" and Palestinian flags, continued as interim President Alan Garber (AB ’77, AM ’77, PhD ’82) conferred degrees. Planes circled the ceremony with banners reading “Jewish Lives Matter” and displaying the Israeli flag. Protesters later held a "People’s Commencement" at Epworth Church to honor the students denied diplomas. Student speakers Shruthi Kumar (AB ’24) and Robert Clinton IV (JD ‘24) deviated from their prepared remarks to voice support for the barred students and criticize the administration, drawing loud applause and a standing ovation. In a tense exchange, Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi of Harvard Chabad confronted Commencement speaker Maria Ressa on stage, accusing her of making antisemitic remarks, before walking off as the benediction was being delivered. The ceremony also included an address by Harvard's first full-time Muslim chaplain, Khalil Abdur-Rashid, and Harvard Hillel Campus Rabbi Getzel Davis, who called for unity and compassion . 

HARVARD ACHIEVES OVER 84% YIELD FOR CLASS OF 2028

Harvard College announced that over 84% of the admitted Class of 2028 will enroll, marking a slight increase from last year's yield. Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons (AB ‘67, EdM ‘69, EdD ‘71) highlighted this as a sign of resilience amid a challenging year for the University. The yield rate is one of the highest since the 1970s . Harvard has yet to release the racial demographics for the Class of 2028 following the Supreme Court's ruling against race-conscious admissions policies.

HARVARD TASK FORCES ON BIAS REPORT WIDESPREAD PAIN AND CALL FOR INCLUSIVE SOLUTIONS

In their Crimson commencement edition op-eds, the Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Bias and the Task Force on Combating Antisemitism both reported pervasive feelings of trauma and exclusion among Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, Jewish, and Israeli community members . The Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Bias Task Force found widespread harassment and a "Palestine exception" to free speech, while the Antisemitism Task Force highlighted Jewish and Israeli students feeling under siege, with many facing social isolation and fears of expressing their identities. Both task forces emphasized the urgent need for increased awareness and inclusive policies to address identity-based bias and hate. They have launched a joint survey and plan to issue detailed recommendations in the fall to foster a more inclusive and respectful campus environment.

HARVARD FACES DONOR BACKLASH AND FUNDING CHALLENGES OVER ANTISEMITISM RESPONSE

An extensive article in The Crimson covers how Interim President Alan Garber (AB ’77, AM ’77, PhD ’82) and Vice President of Alumni Affairs and Development Brian Lee are leading efforts to win back these donors through direct outreach and listening sessions. Some prominent donors, including Ken Griffin (AB ‘89) and the Wexner Foundation, have publicly paused contributions due to dissatisfaction with Harvard's handling of antisemitism on campus. The development office has shifted its strategy to focus on maintaining relationships with existing donors, emphasizing the university’s ongoing initiatives and addressing concerns over campus climate . Outgoing Harvard Corporation Treasurer Paul Finnegan (AB ‘75, MBA ‘82) praised Garber's efforts, stating, “The presence of Alan Garber has been just extraordinary in terms of changing the narrative.”

ELITE UNIVERSITIES SEEK NEW LEADERS AMID GROWING CHALLENGES

Numerous prestigious universities, including UCLA, Yale, Harvard, and Cornell, are searching for new presidents, highlighting the growing challenges of these roles. Recent departures amid controversies reveal the polarized environment. University boards are increasingly cautious, favoring internal candidates or extending interim terms , risking perpetuating the status quo instead of fostering needed reforms.

DREW FAUST DEFENDS HIGHER EDUCATION IN PASSIONATE PBK SPEECH

University Professor and former Harvard President Drew Faust defended higher education and criticized politicians for undermining universities during her keynote address to Phi Beta Kappa honorees. She stressed that universities must uphold their values and resist political attacks while prioritizing free speech and open inquiry . Faust also referenced the campaign against former Harvard President Claudine Gay, highlighting the increasing politicization of higher education and calling for universities to maintain institutional neutrality .

KEN GRIFFIN: HARVARD GRADUATES SHOULD LEAD WITH SERVICE AND INTEGRITY

In his op-ed in the commencement edition of The Crimson, Ken Griffin (AB ‘89) emphasizes the duty of Harvard graduates to "serve better thy country and thy kind" by engaging in civic life and making tangible differences in society. He advocates for supporting freedom of inquiry and embracing diversity of thought through respectful debate . Griffin urges graduates to reject divisive ideologies, believe in their ability to shape their future, and approach societal change with a constructive attitude .

REP. AUCHINCLOSS SUGGESTS CUTTING FEDERAL FUNDS TO HARVARD OVER HANDLING OF ANTISEMITISM

U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (AB ‘10) said that cutting federal funds for Harvard and other universities should be considered due to their handling of campus antisemitism . Auchincloss visited the school earlier this month amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests and argued its approach might violate federal law. He cited an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report giving failing grades to several Massachusetts universities for antisemitism policies and requested action plans from these schools by summer . However, ADL's ratings faced criticism from Hillel International, with CEO Adam Lehman calling them misleading and inaccurate in assessing Jewish student experiences.

ANONYMOUS APP SIDECHAT SPARKS CONTROVERSY AND HUMOR AMONG HARVARD STUDENTS

The Crimson covered the rise and complexities of the anonymous app Sidechat, which is popular at Harvard. Harvard students frequently use Sidechat to share memes and vent about campus challenges, like the Statistics 110 final exam. While the app offers much-needed humor and relief, its anonymity has led to polarized political debates and negativity, especially after the Yard encampment . Students have voiced concerns about the lack of accountability and the potential for harmful posts. Despite these issues, some students appreciate the exposure to diverse perspectives, though the administration has had to intervene to address content in the past .

May 17, 2024 — Harvard's Discipline Dilemma — Politics or Veritas?

THE BIG IDEA: HARVARD’S DISCIPLINE DILEMMA—POLITICS OR VERITAS?

This week, the Harvard Out of Palestine student encampment protest in Harvard Yard ended with an agreement from Interim President Alan Garber. He agreed to facilitate meetings with university leadership about divestment from Israel-related interests and academic changes regarding the Middle East. Unlike at Columbia, no police action was needed to disband the encampment. Harvard has clearly and publicly stated that the students involved in the encampment violated university policies. Despite past leniency, Harvard should enforce its publicly stated rules in the disciplinary proceedings of the encampment participants. This will demonstrate the university’s renewed commitment to prioritizing academics in pursuit of Veritas.

Since the encampment began, Harvard has summoned more than 60 students before the Ad Board, the formal FAS disciplinary body, and has placed at least 22 students on involuntary leave. Involuntary leave , which the university's policies state is not meant for discipline, can be used for incidents that might later lead to disciplinary action, such as when a student has allegedly violated a Harvard School’s “disciplinary rule, and his or her presence on campus poses a significant risk to safety or to the educational environment of the community.” With both involuntary leave and Ad Board processes, the University has publicized its policies, explained to the community that policies were being violated, and offered repeated warnings to students before invoking consequences. In his announcement of the encampment’s end, Garber addressed both the involuntary leave process and the Ad Board proceedings. He said would “ask that the Schools promptly initiate applicable reinstatement proceedings for all individuals who have been placed on involuntary leaves of absence.” Regardless of whether they are reinstated, these students will still face disciplinary proceedings before each School’s formal disciplinary board, which Garber is recommending expediting. 

Students deserve speedy Ad Board proceedings without months of useless red tape, but the Schools should not reinstate students from involuntary leave until the proceedings are over. Expedited disciplinary proceedings will let protesters know where they stand regarding sanctions, and will communicate to the community that the university is committed to enforcing its rules. The Schools should adhere to the rules in the Harvard Handbook, which states that “any disciplinary matter must be resolved before a student on leave of absence will be allowed to return.”

Two activists from the 2001 Harvard Living Wage Campaign argued this week in The Crimson that current protesters should face no consequences, just as they did not. When the 2001 Mass Hall occupation ended, Harvard even honored the participants with a Kennedy School award. However, past leniency shouldn't set a precedent, as it was based on a politicized view of Harvard. Selectively applying rules and celebrating those who break them – when their politics are in vogue – compromises the university's ability to foster open inquiry for all. Harvard must correct past enforcement errors to show its commitment to depoliticizing the school and refocusing on its academic mission. More importantly, when doing so, Harvard should make it clear why these rules prohibiting disruption of academic activities exist. The rules preserve Harvard’s core mission: academic excellence in the pursuit of Veritas. Disruptions like relocating exams due to the encampment hinder this mission by compromising the free exchange of ideas.

A commitment to academic excellence and truth needs a fair disciplinary process. As illustrated by the 2001 Mass Hall occupation, Harvard has lacked this in the past, but it must change going forward. Enforcing clear, unbiased rules consistently will create an environment where truth and academic freedom can thrive. Garber wished to end the encampment partially because “The members of the Class of 2024 deserve to enjoy this milestone uninterrupted and unimpeded.” The most profound way to honor the graduating class is to ensure that the university they are leaving upholds its highest principles—clarity and fairness for all in the pursuit of Veritas.

1636 Forum Feature:

Sam Lessin (AB ‘05) and John Tomasi, President of Heterodox Academy and former Brown University professor, recorded a conversation about Harvard’s history and the path back to putting open inquiry and academic excellence first at American universities. Watch and listen on YouTube here .

Events:

– Heterodox Academy is sponsoring the virtual “HxLibraries Spring 2024 Symposium: Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage” on May 23 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. CT. The agenda includes a facilitated book discussion of Cancel Wars : How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy by Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath, a 2020-2021 fellow-in-residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. Register here .

– This year’s Radcliffe Day begins at 10 a.m. ET on May 24. The Harvard Radcliffe Institute will award the Radcliffe Medal to Sonia Sotomayor. The program features a panel, “The Long Arc of Equality and Justice in America,” moderated by NYU Professor of Law Melissa Murray. There will also be a conversation between Sotomayor and University Professor and former HLS dean Martha Minow (EdM ’76). Register here .

FYIs:

HARVARD YARD ENCAMPMENT ENDS, GARBER AGREES TO MEETINGS ABOUT ENDOWMENT AND MIDDLE EASTERN ACADEMIC CONTENT

On Tuesday, Harvard and student protesters from Harvard Out of Palestine (HOOP) announced an agreement to end the encampment in Harvard Yard, with the university agreeing to discuss student concerns about its endowment and academic content regarding the Middle East and to process petitions for reinstating suspended students . Unlike at other universities, no police action was needed to clear the protest. HOOP claimed Harvard conceded to its demands, while Harvard stated it only agreed to open a dialogue. Interim President Alan Garber (AB ’77, AM ’77, PhD ’82) emphasized that decisions on disciplinary actions would ultimately be determined by individual schools within Harvard. FAS Dean Hopi Hoekstra praised Garber for handling the encampment peacefully and called for meaningful dialogue in her first public statement on the occupation. Prior to disbanding, the encampment protesters removed a banner of Garber depicted as a devil after criticism that it was antisemitic; HOOP told The Crimson that the organization took down the poster “in an abundance of caution and sensitivity” and “The movement for the liberation of Palestine includes the safety and belonging of all people.”

HARVARD GRAD STUDENTS FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES FOR PROTEST CONFRONTATION

Two Harvard graduate students, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo (HDS) and Ibrahim Bharmal (HLS & HKS), face criminal charges and up to 200 days in jail for their involvement in a confrontation with an Israeli HBS student at a pro-Palestine protest in October. They were each charged with two misdemeanors: assault and battery, and violating the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act. The incident occurred during a "die-in" protest at HBS, where they blocked and escorted the Israeli student out after he attempted to film protesters.

HARVARD FAS TO VOTE ON UNIVERSITY-WIDE FACULTY SENATE

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) will hold an online vote on electing delegates to a planning body for a University-wide faculty senate , delaying a final decision until summer. The proposal, aiming for Harvard-wide faculty governance, faced opposition but overcame attempts to stall it led by University Professor Ann Blair (AB ‘84). If passed, FAS will elect 12 representatives to discuss a faculty senate's desirability and design, with other faculties voting in the fall.

HARVARD STUDY FINDS BOARD EXAMS PREDICT DOCTOR PERFORMANCE

A new study published in JAMA found that internal medicine patients of newly trained physicians with top scores on board certification exams had a lower risk of dying within seven days of hospital admission or being readmitted . The study, led by Harvard Medical School and the American Board of Internal Medicine, suggests that these exams are effective indicators of future physician performance on critical patient outcomes. In contrast, the study found no link between patient outcomes and physicians’ scores on “medical milestone” ratings during residency. The findings support the value of board exams in assessing physician competence and improving patient care.

NYT EDITORIAL BOARD CRITICIZES UNIVERSITIES FOR FAILING TO MAINTAIN ORDER DURING PROTESTS

In an editorial this week, the New York Times editorial board argued that while protest is a fundamental part of free speech, universities have to enforce rules to maintain order and protect academic freedom. The board criticized university leaders for failing to uphold standards consistently, which leads to chaos and external political interference . They emphasized the importance of a culture of open inquiry, where all views can be heard and rules are enforced fairly .

BIG LAW FIRM TO RIGOROUSLY SCREEN JOB CANDIDATES FOR HARASSMENT AND DISCRIMINATION, INCLUDING ANTISEMITISM

Sullivan & Cromwell will conduct rigorous background checks on job candidates to ensure they haven't engaged in harassment or discrimination, particularly in response to recent antisemitic behavior during pro-Palestinian protests. The firm will scrutinize resumés, online presence, and school activities for ties to “pro-terrorist groups” and conduct formal background checks. “We have been consistent in our view, which is that any bias, any hate speech, is inappropriate—anti-Black, anti-Hispanic, anti-LGBTQ or antisemitic, all of it,” the firm’s senior chair Joe Shenker said.

HARVARD GRAD STUDENT UNION FILES UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICE CHARGES REGARDING ENCAMPMENT

The Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers filed unfair labor practice charges against Harvard, alleging the University's response to the pro-Palestine encampment violated student workers' rights through “discrimination” and “suppression of protected concerted activity.” The union also accused Harvard of surveillance, citing police taking photos of protestors. Harvard denies the claims, stating the encampment was unrelated to student worker conditions and not protected under labor laws.

HOUSE REPORT REVEALS CONFLICT BETWEEN HARVARD ANTISEMITISM TASK FORCE AND CLAUDINE GAY

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce released a report detailing a conflict between former President Claudine Gay (PhD ‘98) and the antisemitism advisory group she established after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The report revealed that five of the eight advisory members threatened to resign shortly after the group's formation, criticizing Harvard’s leaders for not following their recommendations. Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton called the report "an incomplete and inaccurate view" of Harvard's efforts against antisemitism.

HARVARD JEWISH ALUMNI REPORT CITES SYSTEMIC ANTISEMITISM ON CAMPUS

The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) released a study about how Jewish students at Harvard feel ostracized and harassed by both peers and faculty. The report cites systemic issues, including biased narratives taught in classrooms, hostility from faculty, and a lack of administrative protection . HJAA, formed after the October 7 Hamas attack, found that many students reported feeling unsafe and unsupported. The report calls for Harvard to enforce its codes of conduct uniformly and address the pervasive antisemitism on campus.

May 10, 2024 — MIT Just Eliminated DEI Statements in Faculty Hiring, Harvard Should Too

THE BIG IDEA: MIT JUST ELIMINATED DEI STATEMENTS IN FACULTY HIRING, HARVARD SHOULD TOO

MIT  announced Monday it will no longer require “DEI statements” from faculty job-seekers. Harvard should follow its lead.

Prior to Monday, MIT faculty candidates had to write one-page statements on how they’d advance institutional DEI goals. Senior leadership, including the VP for equity and inclusion, unanimously agreed to pull that back. According to President Sally Kornbluth, such statements “infringe on freedom of expression … [and] they don’t work.”We agree with MIT’s new approach. Diversity and inclusion are essential inputs to academic excellence. Searching for the best and brightest faculty demands a wide net, an open tent, and a welcoming work environment. While seeking out diverse talent and building an inclusive environment are laudable goals, DEI statements in hiring often venture far beyond these common sense ideals and instead stifle viewpoint diversity and open inquiry. 

Harvard's own Bok Center for Teaching and Learning coaches applicants who are writing DEI statements to discuss the "theories and approaches" that inform their teaching, including "critical inclusive pedagogy, anti-racist pedagogy, decolonial pedagogy, [and] feminist pedagogy..."

It's no wonder that liberal HLS Professor Randall Kennedy, writing in The Crimson against DEI statements , says that this practice “leans heavily and tendentiously towards varieties of academic leftism and implicitly discourages candidates” of opposing viewpoints. It is, in his words, “inimical to an intellectually healthy university environment.”

We believe that Harvard can best achieve its goals of a diverse and inclusive environment by holding academic excellence and freedom as its North Star. Excellence in scholarship can be found in a diverse range of applicants. A culture that emphasizes academic freedom and open inquiry will be most inclusive because it fosters an environment where professors can take risks and engage with challenging subjects.

FIRE noted that MIT alumni spurred the change by networking and hosting debates on race and gender issues. We believe that the 1636 Forum can have a similar impact, and we will continue to promote reforms that help Harvard attract the world’s most exceptional students, professors, and community – starting by following MIT.

1636 Forum Board of Overseers Election:

– In the current Harvard Board of Overseers election open until May 14 5 p.m. ET, the 1636 Forum recommends voting for Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98), Theodore Chuang (AB ’91, JD ‘94), and Scott Mead (AB ’77) (in ballot order). Learn more about the candidates, our endorsement process, and how to vote.

Events:

– HBS is virtually hosting “After October 7: A Conversation with Dean Srikant Datar and School Leadership” on May 17 from 9-10 a.m. ET. Joining Datar will be HBS Alumni Board President Andreas Stavropoulos (MBA ‘97), co-chairs of the Antisemitism and Islamophobia and Anti-Arabism Working Groups, and other School administrative leaders. HBS alumni can find their unique registration link in an email from [email protected].

– Heterodox Academy is sponsoring the virtual “HxLibraries Spring 2024 Symposium: Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage” on May 23 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. CT. The agenda includes a facilitated book discussion of Cancel Wars : How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy by Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath, a 2020-2021 fellow-in-residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. Register here .

– This year’s Radcliffe Day begins at 10 a.m. ET on May 24. The Harvard Radcliffe Institute will award the Radcliffe Medal to Sonia Sotomayor. The program features a panel, “The Long Arc of Equality and Justice in America,” moderated by NYU Professor of Law Melissa Murray. There will also be a conversation between Sotomayor and University Professor and former HLS dean Martha Minow (EdM ’76). Register here .

FYIs:

HARVARD PLACES ENCAMPMENT PARTICIPANTS ON INVOLUNTARY LEAVE

The encampment in Harvard Yard continued this week. More than 180 faculty members signed a letter to Interim President Alan Garber (AB ’77, AM ’77, PhD ’82) to dismantle the encampment , criticizing its existence as creating an "atmosphere of lawlessness,” urging the enforcement of conduct rules, and emphasizing the importance of civil discourse. On Tuesday, encampment participants refused to submit to ID checks by the administration and Dean of Student Services Michael Burke (EdM ‘07) had to film them on his cellphone. After negotiations failed, the university began placing encampment participants on involuntary leave . Participants criticized the use of involuntary leave, rather than Ad Board proceedings, for their lack of due process.

HARVARD ENCAMPMENT BANNER DEPICTS PRESIDENT GARBER AS A RAT, POPULAR ANTISEMITIC TROPE

While not yet in news publications, this image is circulating of this banner from the Harvard Yard encampment that depicts Interim President Alan Garber (AB ’77, AM ’77, PhD ’82) as a rat, associating him with funding "genocide" and "Zionism." The use of a rat to depict Garber, who is Jewish, taps into a long-standing antisemitic trope. Historically, rats have been used in antisemitic propaganda to dehumanize Jewish people, suggesting cunning, disease, and malevolence. 

HARVARD ALUM JOURNALIST: MOST YARD CAMPERS ARE LEAVING WITHIN NEXT TWO WEEKS ANYWAY

As a member of the press, Rebecca Cadenhead (AB ‘23) stayed overnight at the Harvard encampment. From her interviews with participants, she “gleaned that some activists don’t think the encampment is worth its cost… Most campers will move out within the next two weeks, regardless of what the administration does .” 

MIT, PENN, UCHICAGO CLEAR STUDENT ENCAMPMENTS

Among other schools, MIT, Penn, and UChicago cleared the encampments on their campuses this week. In an extensive public update today, MIT President Sally Kornbluth explained how MIT police arrested 10 students this morning : she detailed the timeline of key events, attempts to reach a resolution with the protesters through dialogue, and the cost and disruption to campus that ultimately led to her decision for police action. She highlighted that dialogue with protesters failed because “reaching a solution hinged on our ability to meet the students’ primary demand, which we could not do in a well-principled way that respected the academic freedom of our faculty. ”

UCHICAGO PRESIDENT OFFERS STRONG ARGUMENT FOR DIALOGUE AND INSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY

UChicago President Paul Alivisatos published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal explaining why he ended the UChicago encampment. Alivisatos’s approach meant students ended the encampment without need for arrests. UChicago administrators first engaged in dialogue with the protesters: “I believe dialogue may be appropriate under certain circumstances, provided that protesters come to it openly with an understanding that the consequences of their policy violations will be reviewed evenhandedly .” But Alivisatos ended the talks when students would not yield on demands that violate the university’s principle of institutional neutrality: “In short, the protesters were determined that the university should take sides in the conflict in Israel and Gaza. Other demands would have led to having political goals guide core aspects of the university’s institutional approaches , from how we invest our endowment to when and how I make statements. Faculty members and students are more than free to engage in advocacy on one side or the other. But if the university did so as an institution, it would no longer be much of a university .”

PROF. ERIC NELSON: NEGOTIATING WITH THE ENCAMPMENT PARTICIPANTS UNDERMINES COMMUNITY NORMS

In a Crimson op-ed on Thursday, Professor of Government Eric Nelson (AB ‘99) argued for ending the Yard encampment and disciplining the involved students, contrasting with faculty who suggested negotiations. Nelson argued that making concessions to students who break rules would encourage similar future disruptions and be unfair to those who adhere to university norms . He also made a moral argument: negotiating could undermine structured community decision-making processes and prioritize the demands of a vocal minority over the broader university community .

PROF. DANIELLE ALLEN: SPEECH AS A STUDENT IS DIFFERENT FROM SPEECH IN CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and University Professor Danielle Allen (AM ‘98, PhD ‘01), who is a member of the Council on Academic Freedom, published the fifth in a five-part Crimson series that will “identify and assess the difficult ethical questions surfaced by Harvard’s recent leadership crisis.” In her fifth piece , Allen explores the distinctions between personal, professional, and civic roles and the unique constraints each carries, especially in the context of speech-related issues on campus. Allen urges students to clearly delineate between their student responsibilities and civic activism: “The students in the encampment are currently trying to hold student and civic roles simultaneously. By holding hearings that could put students on involuntary leave, the University forces a choice between the two. My hope is that our students might both choose to prioritize their student roles by voluntarily departing the camp and reconsider how they exercise their civic duty. I encourage them to engage in policy-setting forums to develop and promote sound and impactful policies that advance the goal I believe I hear them pursuing: safety and security for all Palestinians and Israelis.”

PROF. MUSA AL-GHARBI: COLUMBIA AND ITS PRESIDENTS ARE FULL OF CONTRADICTIONS

In Compact magazine, Stony Brook professor Musa al-Gharbi highlights the disconnect between Columbia’s self-styled image of fostering activism and the reality of its crackdown on student protests , which included police in riot gear arresting over 100 students. The article concludes that Columbia's actions, rather than addressing the crisis in Gaza or fostering meaningful change, serve to maintain its role as a reproducer of social inequality and a gatekeeper of elite status .

PROF. ROLAND FRYER: THE ECON THEORY OF ‘SIGNALING’ EXPLAINS THE DOUBLE STANDARDS OF ADMINISTRATORS

In an Wall Street Journal op-ed, Professor of Economics Roland Fryer applies economic theory, specifically Michael Spence's signaling model, to explain the behavior of university administrators in handling campus protests. He suggests that administrators face a signaling dilemma, needing to balance appeasing both student protesters and alumni donors , whose preferences might conflict. This results in strategic disclosures of preference, where administrators try to signal alignment with the dominant group's values at any given time, leading to equivocal and often unsatisfactory responses to controversial issues.

ROSS DOUTHAT: COLUMBIA’S CORE CURRICULUM HAS A NARROW, PROGRESSIVE FOCUS

In his New York Times column , Ross Douthat (AB ‘02) criticizes Columbia’s core curriculum for focusing primarily on progressive themes while neglecting conservative viewpoints , particularly in contemporary studies. He argues that this selective educational approach limits students' understanding of broader political and historical issues, fostering a narrow worldview centered on racism and climate change . In a follow-up column , Douthat suggests broadening the core curriculum with modules that include diverse ideological perspectives. He proposes additions like "The Secular and the Sacred" and "Technology and Its Discontents" that incorporate conservative-leaning and other varied viewpoints to better balance the curriculum.

PROF. VITERNA: HARVARD COURSES DON’T HAVE AN IDEOLOGICAL SLANT

In a Crimson op-ed, Professor of Sociology and Chair of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality department Jocelyn Viterna criticizes the use of word count analysis to evaluate ideological bias in Harvard's curriculum and singles out former Dean of Harvard College and Professor of Computer Science Harry Lewis (AB ‘68, PhD ‘74). She challenges the validity of these analyses, arguing that they fail to provide sufficient context for terms like "decolonize," which appear infrequently across the entire course catalog , and show no conclusive evidence of ideological bias.

HARVARD STRUGGLES TO FIND CLASS DAY SPEAKER

More than 10 individuals have declined offers to be the keynote speaker for Harvard College's Class Day, with reasons ranging from reluctance to associate with the university during a controversial year, to scheduling conflicts and high honorarium demands. The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) is now extending invitations beyond their original list, reaching out to notable figures such as former Governor Charlie Baker, Bill Burr, and actors like George Clooney.

HARVARD ALUMS WITHHOLD DONATIONS IN SOLIDARITY WITH ENCAMPMENT, DIVESTMENT MOVEMENT

The group Harvard Alumni for Palestine announced they will withhold donations and retract permission for Harvard to use their names and work on promotional sites in solidarity with the pro-Palestine Yard encampment. They demand the university disclose investments, divest from Israel, drop disciplinary actions against student protesters, and reinstate the Palestinian Solidarity Committee. The group leaders – Nizar Farsakh (MA ‘10), Hossam Nasr (AB ‘21), and Rosa Vazques (AB ‘20) – published an op-ed in The Crimson this week. Nasr told The Crimson hundreds of alumni have signed the group’s pledge. It is unclear if and how much the alumni this group represents have historically donated, especially given the precipitously declining donation rates among young alumni.

MIT ELIMINATE REQUIRED DEI STATEMENTS IN FACULTY HIRING

MIT has decided to discontinue requiring diversity statements from candidates applying for faculty positions, a practice that has faced criticism for enforcing ideological conformity . MIT President Sally Kornbluth described these statements as compelled speech that undermines freedom of expression and are ineffective in fostering inclusivity. The change reflects an ongoing shift at MIT toward refocusing the school on academic rigor.

May 3, 2024 — Colleges Recruited for Activism, Now They Should Recruit for Open Inquiry

THE BIG IDEA: COLLEGES RECRUITED FOR ACTIVISM, NOW THEY SHOULD RECRUIT FOR OPEN INQUIRY

This week, students at Columbia destroyed parts of Hamilton Hall, taking hammers to windows as they occupied the university building and barricading themselves with furniture. Activists at other schools engaged in similarly unproductive activity rather than in educational inquiry and dialogue on their concerns. At Harvard, the encampment in the Yard has caused clear academic disruption, with the school relocating 25 final exams away from there. Yet, these events should come as no surprise — elite universities have not only encouraged academically disruptive protest on campus: they’ve explicitly encouraged it in the admissions process — as long as such protests support a narrow set of orthodox causes that are in vogue in higher education.

Across the last several years, Harvard and other elite colleges have advertised themselves as supporters of academically disruptive protest in official admissions office communications. In The Atlantic this week, Tyler Austin Harper recounts his conversation with a high school senior who attended Columbia’s accepted-students weekend a few days before the first set of NYPD campus arrests in April. The student said admissions office staff warned the admitted students that “they may experience ‘disruptions’ during their visit, but boasted that these were simply part of the school’s ‘long and robust history of student protest.’”

Yale’s official admissions website still features a 2018 blog post, “ In Support of Student Protests ,” by its Director of Recruitment. She said she was “cheering” for students walking out of their high school classes for gun control, stating they were “rightly” disrupting teaching in support of a “brave” and “good” cause. A few days later, Harvard’s official admissions website followed with an (at least somewhat more viewpoint-neutral) statement of support for protests: “Students who are disciplined for engaging responsibly in exercising their rights and freedoms would not have their chances of admission compromised or their admissions revoked.” 

As we’ve said in the past, free speech and academic freedom both have a place at Harvard. But Harvard must first and foremost create an environment where students can pursue the truth through free and open inquiry without the University’s favoring one viewpoint. That starts by recruiting students who share a commitment to this environment. Why not make it clear by asking in an application essay: regardless of what the issue is, how have you engaged in open inquiry on an issue you care deeply about? 

Two weeks ago, we suggested that Harvard write a letter to its undergraduate admits, like Stanford did , emphasizing the importance of diversity of thought, free expression, and constructive disagreement and stating that preventing peers “from engaging as equal participants in campus life” has no place at Stanford. Harvard needs to make the same clear to not only its admitted and current students — but its applicants too.

1636 Forum Board of Overseers Election:

– In the current Harvard Board of Overseers election open until May 14 5 p.m. ET, the 1636 Forum recommends voting for Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98), Theodore Chuang (AB ’91, JD ‘94), and Scott Mead (AB ’77) (in ballot order). Learn more about the candidates, our endorsement process, and how to vote.

Events:

– Heterodox Academy is sponsoring the virtual “HxLibraries Spring 2024 Symposium: Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage” on May 23 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. CT. The agenda includes a facilitated book discussion of Cancel Wars : How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy by Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath, a 2020-2021 fellow-in-residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. Register here .

– This year’s Radcliffe Day begins at 10 a.m. ET on May 24. The Harvard Radcliffe Institute will award the Radcliffe Medal to Sonia Sotomayor. The program features a panel, “The Long Arc of Equality and Justice in America,” moderated by NYU Professor of Law Melissa Murray. There will also be a conversation between Sotomayor and University Professor and former HLS dean Martha Minow (EdM ’76). Register here .

FYIs:

COLLEGES NATIONWIDE RESPOND TO ENCAMPMENTS DIFFERENTLY

Encampments continued this week at colleges across the country, with administrations responding in a wide range of ways, from continuing to allow them, negotiating with the protesters, and arresting the student and faculty protesters. Columbia President Minouche Shafik wrote to the NYPD that the school was requesting that police remove protesters from an occupied campus building and a nearby tent encampment “with the utmost regret.” The NYPD will retain a presence on campus until May 17 when commencement activities are over. At Brown , the administration and protesters struck a deal that the encampment would be removed in exchange for university leadership agreeing to discuss and vote on divestment of the school’s endowment from companies tied to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.

HARVARD ENCAMPMENT LEADERS GIVE UNIVERSITY MONDAY DEADLINE TO BEGIN NEGOTIATIONS

Today, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, the group that organized the current encampment in the Yard, has issued a deadline of Monday for the University to begin negotiations regarding their demands for disclosure and divestment from investments in Israel and the West Bank. The university has not responded to the group's request for negotiations. The encampment, which has grown to over 50 tents and expanded to University Hall, could potentially disrupt the upcoming commencement ceremonies if it continues past the end of finals period.

UCHICAGO LEADS BY EXAMPLE ON FREE SPEECH AND DISRUPTION POLICIES

This week when students established an encampment on the UChicago campus, President Paul Alivisatos published a clear letter to the community in which he illustrated with real examples how the university’s famous, long-held free expression principles apply to protest situations : “First, last quarter a student group secured university permission to cover a large fraction of the Main Quad with a massive Palestinian flag consisting of thousands of tiny colored flags…staffed by students at tables during certain hours…It stood for weeks until the end of the approved time, at which point the student group removed it, making way for others to express their views in that space …As a second illustrative example, in November, a group of students and faculty undertook an occupation of Rosenwald Hall, a classroom and administration building. That was a clear disruption of the learning of others and of the normal functioning of the University…They are subject now to the University’s disciplinary process, which is still pending. In short, when expression becomes disruption, we act decisively to protect the learning environment of students and the functioning of the University against genuinely disruptive protesters.”

HARVARD CORPORATION MEETS WITH FACULTY IN RARE TOWN HALL, ADMITS TO IMPROPERLY PREPARING CLAUDINE GAY FOR CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY

During a rare town hall with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, members of the Harvard Corporation discussed the challenges faced during the fall semester, including controversies and calls for change. Corporation member and former Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman admitted the Corporation’s failure to adequately prepare former President Claudine Gay (PhD ‘98) before her congressional testimony . The meeting also touched on issues such as transparency, donor influence, and the potential creation of a faculty senate . While some attendees praised the dialogue, others felt their questions were not fully addressed.

FINAL EXAMS MOVED AWAY FROM ENCAMPMENT BY HARVARD HALL

The Harvard Registrar’s Office announced new locations outside of Harvard Yard for 25 final exams originally planned for Harvard Hall . The Registrar’s Office did not specify the reason for the change in its announcement. The encampment has prompted concerns about disruptions to campus activities, leading to last-minute relocations of events, including a town hall with the Harvard Corporation . As the encampment enters its second week, the school has initiated disciplinary actions against student protesters .

FRESHMEN LIVING BY THE YARD SAY ENCAMPMENT NOT DISRUPTIVE

Nearly all 40 freshmen living near Harvard Yard interviewed by The Crimson stated that the current encampment has not significantly disturbed their daily routines or studying during the exam period, contrary to warnings from Harvard College Dean of Students Thomas Dunne. Harvard Hillel President Nathan Gershengorn (AB ’26) disagreed in an email last Sunday: “Today, there are Jewish students who have shared that they are renting hotels off-campus or feel unable to study in their rooms.” The administration continues to pursue disciplinary actions against participants in the encampment, with over 30 students summoned before the Administrative Board .

INDICATIONS OF SUPPORT FOR PERMANENT GARBER PRESIDENCY

As interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber (AB ’77, AM ’77, PhD ’82) gains support from some faculty and alumni for a permanent appointment, the Harvard Corporation has not yet initiated a formal search for the 31st president. However, public comments from Corporation members, including Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker (AB ’81), indicate strong backing for Garber, with Pritzker expressing that Garber has the "complete confidence" of the University’s governing boards . While the Corporation has formed a subcommittee to review presidential search processes , there's uncertainty about whether Garber will be permanently appointed or if a broader search will be conducted to consider other candidates, both internal and external. Garber himself has committed to remaining interim president beyond June 2024 but has not elaborated further on his future plans.

PROF. DANIELLE ALLEN:

Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and University Professor Danielle Allen (AM ‘98, PhD ‘01), who is a member of the Council on Academic Freedom, published the third in a five-part Crimson series that will “ identify and assess the difficult ethical questions surfaced by Harvard’s recent leadership crisis. ” In her fourth piece , Allen calls for clear administrator enforcement of campus rules against violence or harassment and urges administrators to let faculty address ‘permissible but bad’ speech given their role as educators : “The biggest mistake of all, though, is when we assume that speech protections mean there is nothing we can do about permissible but bad speech, and thereby forget the most important thing we need to do: teach.” She stresses the necessity of not abandoning students when they make mistakes and says students are “hungry for lessons about history, antisemitism, Islamophobia, Israel, Palestine, two-state solutions, diverse religious traditions, diverse ideologies, peace-making, conflict transformation, human rights, pluralism, and so on. In fact, because we have neglected to teach our students in these areas, many students are forced to teach themselves. ”

CORPORATION FORMS SUBCOMMITTEE TO REVIEW PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH PROCESS

At a faculty town hall on Tuesday, Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker (AB ’81) announced the Corporation has formed a subcommittee to review its presidential search process, aiming to address criticisms and improve transparency ahead of the search for the university's next president. Details about its composition and timeline remain undisclosed. In The Crimson’s annual Faculty of Arts and Sciences survey, over 49 percent of faculty lacked confidence in the Corporation's ability to select a president capable of stabilizing the university. Nearly 80 percent of respondents sought greater transparency from the Corporation, and 76.5 percent believed that faculty input during presidential searches was insufficient .

FAS TO DISCUSS FORMING UNIVERSITY-WIDE FACULTY SENATE NEXT WEEK

Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences plans to discuss a resolution on May 7 that could lead to the creation of a university-wide faculty senate, with delegates to be elected for a planning body tasked with designing the senate's structure and bylaws. The proposed resolution aims to initiate the process by committing the FAS to electing delegates for the planning body, with plans for a special meeting on May 14 to vote on the matter. The group pushing for the senate, which includes faculty from all nine faculties, seeks to complete the planning by the start of 2025.

STUDENTS PROTEST SACKLER TIES AS PART OF CLASS ASSIGNMENT

A group of nine Harvard students protested Harvard's association with the Sackler family, former owners of Purdue Pharma, by distributing pamphlets and delivering a speech at Harvard’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum last Saturday. The demonstration, organized as part of a final class assignment for a course on the opioid epidemic , aimed to raise awareness about the Sacklers' role in the crisis and demand transparency from the university. The students called for Harvard to remove the Sackler name from its buildings and stop accepting donations from pharmaceutical companies implicated in the opioid epidemic. The demonstration garnered applause from museum visitors , and Harvard is currently reviewing proposals to denounce the Sackler name on campus .

April 26, 2024 — The Yard Encampment, the Ticking Clock on Decisive Action

THE BIG IDEA: THE YARD ENCAMPMENT, THE TICKING CLOCK ON DECISIVE ACTION

We would love to be talking about the critical importance of the presidential search (and how not to mess up penny's high-stakes mulligan) or what to do about the graduate student pipeline of self styled 'activist academics' or how to do 'buyouts' for tenured faculty, but it is impossible to not address the immediate issue of the encampment in harvard yard. 

When Harvard students (and sadly faculty!) decided to rush into the yard and start their ‘encampment’ this week, I was initially hopeful.  Here was a clear and unambiguous moment for the administration to swiftly react and send a message that the mistakes of the fall were just that - mistakes.  Remove the protestors, discipline the community members violating clearly articulated rules - and do it in a public way that send an unmistakable message that:

Harvard follows through on enforcing its own rules.

Harvard’s private property is an academic space, not a political one.

Instead we are on day three, and while the Administration has talked a big game, it has not taken substantive action.  

The lack of action is not just a squandered opportunity to reset the table.  It leaves everyone left wondering, what is the path forward? 

Have activists successfully called Harvard's bluff on enforcing rules and taking action? Is the University not a place that is willing to do what it takes to create a safe learning environment for all?  Is the University not going to be willing to do what it takes to refocus on academic excellence, or bring back real intellectual freedom and diversity?

Having spoken this week to both students and administrators, there is clear frustration that while leaders are saying a lot of the right things, timelines for studies, discussions, input, recommendations, and action stretch on for years...  That might be the pace of change that Universities are used to in normal times, but in the modern world - those types of timelines simply aren't functional.  The world moves far too quickly for that type of approach.

So, we will see how this plays out in the next few short days.

Either the University leadership will fix this, enforce its rules and send a signal that it is serious about its academic mission.  Or, years from now, we will look back at this moment as a symbol that while some leaders might be well intentioned and say the right things, the University as a platform and system is simply too hamstrung and slow to follow through and defend itself.  I still very much hope for the former. 

- Sam

1636 Forum Board of Overseers Election:

– In the current Harvard Board of Overseers election open until May 14, the 1636 Forum recommends voting for Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98), Theodore Chuang (AB ’91, JD ‘94), and Scott Mead (AB ’77) (in ballot order). Learn more about the candidates, our endorsement process, and how to vote.

Events:

– As part of the HKS Belfer Center Middle East Initiative’s “Middle East Dialogues,” the Institute of Politics will host a conversation with HKS Professor Tarek Masoud and Bret Stephens , New York Times opinion columnist and founder and editor-in-chief of SAPIR, on the war in Gaza, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and free speech on college campuses . The hybrid event is on April 29 at 6 p.m. ET . Registration and livestream details here .

– Bill Ackman (AB ‘88, MBA ‘92) is hosting a Zoom Q+A with willing Board of Overseers candidates for alumni to hear them answer questions on May 1 at 11 a.m. ET. He will post on X for information on how to participate.

– Harvard Hillel presents University Professor Danielle Allen (PhD ‘01) on “Negotiating Civil Discourse and Free Speech.” The Zoom talk will be on May 2 at 7 p.m. ET. Register here .

– This year’s Radcliffe Day begins at 10 a.m. ET on May 24. The Harvard Radcliffe Institute will award the Radcliffe Medal to Sonia Sotomayor. The program features a panel, “The Long Arc of Equality and Justice in America,” moderated by NYU Professor of Law Melissa Murray. There will also be a conversation between Sotomayor and University Professor and former HLS dean Martha Minow (EdM ’76). Register here .

FYIs:

TOP COLLEGES FACE ILLEGAL ENCAMPMENTS BY STUDENT PROTESTERS

Last week, to capitalize on the media attention on Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s congressional testimony, protesters carried out a long-planned demonstration in the form of an encampment on the university’s campus , which they call the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” The encampment “violated a long list of rules and policies” according to Shafik, so Columbia issued a warning to the protesters that it would suspend students involved if the encampment did not disperse. The following day, Shafik called in the NYPD to disband the encampment, resulting in 108 people charged and students suspended, including Congressperson Ilhan Omar’s daughter. NYC Police Commissioner Edward Caban described the arrests as peaceful and the protesters as cooperative. The arrests sparked outrage at other campuses across the country, and protests and solidarity encampments have since sprung up at schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UT Austin, and Northwestern . Some encampments have since dispersed while others, including Harvard’s, continue. After the wave of arrests, Columbia has closed the campus to non-affiliates, but the encampment quickly reemerged and is now going on its 10th day as administrators and student protesters hold talks . FIRE released a statement regarding campus protests and arrests, in which it reiterated “a bedrock principle: Violence is never acceptable.”

HARVARD ENCAMPMENT CONTINUES INTO DAY 3

Harvard’s own encampment of over 30 tents in Harvard Yard continues on its 3rd day today . On Monday, in anticipation of protests, administrators restricted access to the Yard to only HUID holders. On Wednesday, the organizers refused to end the encampment until Harvard meets their demands, which include divestment from institutional and financial ties to Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and the war in Gaza. Dean of Students Thomas Dunne and Associate Dean of Students Lauren Brandt (AB ’01, AM ‘04, PhD ‘09) visited the encampment on Friday morning to “photograph or note the ID numbers of students” who remained there, signaling the school may consider enforcing penalties for violating its rules . On Thursday, Dunne emailed students that the encampment violates school guidelines and participants could face disciplinary consequences. This afternoon, Dunne emailed parents of College students to emphasize the same. Harvard Hillel emailed its community this afternoon as well, noting that it has “not had reports of Jewish students being personally harassed or of excessive noise or disruption to normal activities in the Yard.” Former Harvard President Larry Summers (PhD ‘82) posted on X today blaming the lack of disciplinary action thus far on “the Harvard Corporation’s failure to effectively address issues of prejudice and breakdowns of order on our campus ,” and saying, “There can be no question that Harvard is practicing an ongoing double standard on discrimination between racism, misogyny and anti-semitism.” Interim President Alan Garber (AB ’77, AM ’77, PhD ’82) has not ruled out involving police in handling the protests but said the bar to do so is “very, very high.” 

MAJORITY OF FAS FACULTY DON’T SEE ‘SYSTEMIC ANTISEMITISM’ AND OVER 40% DON’T SEE ‘SYSTEMIC ANTI-ARAB OR ANTI-MUSLIM BIAS’ AT HARVARD

In The Crimson’s annual survey of Harvard FAS faculty, about 59% of faculty respondents said they “somewhat disagree” or “strongly disagree” that there is “systemic antisemitism” at Harvard while only 25% “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree” that there is. A little over 40% said they “somewhat disagree” or “strongly disagree” that there is “systemic anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias” at Harvard while almost 38% said they “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree” that there is. Regarding university efforts to combat antisemitism, about a third of faculty respondents said they were very or somewhat satisfied while a little over a quarter were very or somewhat dissatisfied. For Harvard’s efforts to combat anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias, a little over a quarter were very or somewhat satisfied while a little over a third were very or somewhat dissatisfied. Not all FAS faculty responded fully to the survey, but the demographics of respondents, in terms of tenure status, field, gender, and race, roughly mirrors that of the FAS faculty as a whole.

PROF. BOAZ BARAK: HARVARD CAN MAKE AN IMPACT AS VENUE FOR DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS TO ENGAGE IN DIALOGUE, NOT PROTESTS

Professor of Computer Science Boaz Barak, who is a member of the Council on Academic Freedom, published an op-ed in The Crimson arguing that the protests on campus are largely inconsequential to the actual conflict in the Middle East. Barak believes Harvard's true value is fostering dialogue across differences that could help create future Israeli-Palestinian peace , rather than just reinforcing existing viewpoints in insular camps. He laments that Harvard has become more about protesting opposing beliefs than engaging with them . Barak encourages the Harvard community to embrace difficult conversations instead of retreating to "safe spaces" with the like-minded.

PROF. DANIELLE ALLEN: NOT ALL PERMISSIBLE SPEECH IS GOOD – LET’S CREATE A GOVERNING BODY TO DETERMINE WHAT IS

Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and University Professor Danielle Allen (AM ‘98, PhD ‘01), who is a member of the Council on Academic Freedom, published the third in a five-part Crimson series that will “ identify and assess the difficult ethical questions surfaced by Harvard’s recent leadership crisis .” In her third piece , Allen explains that just because people have the “right” to certain speech, whether because of the principles of academic freedom or free speech, doesn’t mean that speech is a valuable contribution or that it shouldn’t be judged. She advocates for a standing committee, ideally as part of the proposed University-wide faculty senate , to help with “clarifying the line between creating a hostile environment and exercising free speech.”

80% OF AMERICAN UNDERGRADS AT LEAST SOMEWHAT RELUCTANT TO ENGAGE ON 1 OR MORE CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS

Heterodox Academy released its first report on its 2023 Campus Expression Survey (CES). The key findings in this report: (1) of the 4,730 undergraduate respondents, ~80% of students “reported being at least somewhat reluctant to discuss, ask questions about, or share their ideas on at least one of the 10 controversial topics asked about on the CES”; and (2) “the number of students who reported at least some reluctance to discuss a topic was up to 200% higher in the case of the most controversial topics, relative to a typical course topic.”

ANOTHER STUDENT PROTEST TARGET: CHINA

Harvard students in Students for a Free Tibet and Coalition of Students Resisting China organized a protest of Xie Feng, the Chinese Ambassador to the United States , during his opening remarks for the HKS China Conference, an annual summit organized by students in the Greater China Society. The demonstrators, which included Harvard students and local residents, engaged in a range of activities, including disrupting Feng’s speech and standing outside the HKS building with Tibetan flags and protest signs .

COLUMBIA FACULTY PROTEST NYPD ARRESTS ON CAMPUS

In response to the NYPD arrests, over 100 faculty members from Barnard and Columbia held a rally on Columbia's campus to condemn the suspensions and arrests of protesters by the NYPD last week. They demanded all student suspensions be lifted. Multiple professors spoke out against Columbia's president authorizing police force against the "peaceful" protesters and restricting freedom of assembly . The faculty said the school failed to address all perspectives in the crisis and called on the administration for an apology, amnesty for suspended students, and rolling back rules limiting protests.

GAZAN SAYS STUDENT ACTIVISTS ARE HURTING THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE

Hamza Howidy, a Palestinian from Gaza, published an op-ed in Newsweek criticizing student protesters: “As my home is destroyed and too many killed, I never thought I would find myself criticizing those speaking up…As a Gazan and as a Palestinian, I want the protesters and the organizers of these protests to know that their hateful speech harms us.” Howidy says that instead of helping the Palestinian cause, “the protesters aren't interested in peace. Some of the groups have been blocking Palestinian peace activists like me—and I am from Gaza, the very place they claim to care about!”

OVERSEERS CANDIDATES CRITIQUE NOMINATION PROCESS

Five of the eight candidates on the ballot for the ongoing Harvard Board of Overseers election told The Crimson the nomination process should be reevaluated . Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98), who is one of three candidates the 1636 Forum recommends alumni vote for and who ranked first in The Crimson’s own endorsements, told its editorial board, “The process, I think, is inscrutable. I won’t say it’s unfair, but I was selected to stand for election completely without my breathing a word.” Sam Lessin (AB ’05), whose campaign to get onto this year’s ballot didn’t garner enough write-in nominations, said the process “really is not designed” to identify “the best potential Overseers” and many consider the position “much more like an honorary thing” rather than having important governance responsibilities for Harvard.

DO STUDENTS NOW PREFER SOUTHERN COLLEGES OVER THE IVIES?

In “ Kids Are Giving Up on Elite Colleges—and Heading South ,” The Free Press highlights reasons some students have said they prefer colleges in the South over more prestigious ones like the Ivies: an elite degree is not necessary for a high-paying career (especially in STEM), hiring managers don’t care about what school people went to, there is more free speech and ability to comfortably debate ideas in classrooms on some lesser-heralded Southern campuses and fewer to no disruptive campus protests (in some cases no protests at all), lack of reported antisemitism (one of the schools profiled is Elon University, one of two schools to get an “A” rating from the ADL’s campus antisemitism report), better and more modern dorms and facilities, better weather, and happier and more friendly students.

SENATOR FETTERMAN WANTS ROMNEY TO BE HARVARD PRESIDENT

Last week’s 1636 Forum newsletter highlighted an editorial in the Washington Post by the President of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), Daniel Rosen (AB ’96), calling for U.S. Senator Mitt Romney ( MBA ’74, JD ’75) to be named the next President of Harvard. This week, U.S. Senator John Fetterman (MPP ’99) seconded the suggestion to name Romney the next president of Harvard .

April 19, 2024 — Enforcing Campus Disruption Policies Protects Academic Freedom

THE BIG IDEA: ENFORCING CAMPUS DISRUPTION POLICIES PROTECTS ACADEMIC FREEDOM

In today’s New York Times front-page story, " Colleges Warn Student Demonstrators: Enough ," Jeremy Peters reports that universities across the U.S. – including Columbia, MIT, Vanderbilt, the University of Michigan, and Brown – are now more aggressively enforcing their campus disruption policies in light of student protests that “not only are interfering with their ability to provide an education, but...also have left many students, particularly Jewish ones, fearing for their safety.” Some universities, like Harvard, are also updating their own policies. Less than three weeks into his Harvard presidency, Interim President Alan Garber issued new "Guidance on Protest and Dissent." The statement clarified where protests are not allowed – "places in which demonstrations and protests would interfere with the normal activities of the University," including classrooms, libraries, dorms, dining halls, and offices – and emphasized that protesters cannot prevent invited speakers from talking or being heard by audience members.

Such policies and their enforcement have sparked outcries from both defenders of free speech and current student protesters, who claim academic freedom entails an unlimited right to disrupt campus life at any time and in any place. But as Danielle Allen explains in her Crimson column today, academic freedom and free speech are distinct concepts, with each playing a uniquely valuable role in the pursuit of 'Veritas' and academic excellence. 

To successfully pursue truth and produce the best scholarship, we must facilitate the free exchange of ideas in the classroom. Rather than abridging academic freedom, policies preventing classroom disruption actually enable academic freedom by ensuring a diversity of viewpoints is heard and considered.

As highlighted in last week’s 1636 Forum newsletter, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff has explained that shout-downs, heckler’s vetoes, and disinvitations are not free speech but rather the opposite – “mob censorship, and a grave threat to free speech.” Limiting shout-downs and heckler’s vetoes in this way is why time, place, and manner restrictions can be appropriate. While reaffirming the importance of a right to protest, Allen puts forth a guiding principle: "wherever spaces and events are integral to academic work and experience, they should be off-limits to disruption.” 

Of course, applying this principle at universities can be complicated. However, Harvard has the opportunity to lead the way through its new working groups, the scholarship of its professors, including Council on Academic Freedom members Allen and Jeannie Suk Gersen, and the leadership of Interim President Garber.

As the Times article describes, the nature of student protests has also changed since the Vietnam War era. Vanderbilt chancellor Daniel Diermeier said he and other university presidents now encounter students whose interest in campus free speech is focused on “protesting [and] disruption” and are “not interested in dialogue. When they are invited for dialogue, they do not participate.”

Earlier this month, Stanford sent its newly admitted undergraduates a letter emphasizing the importance of diversity of thought, free expression, and constructive disagreement at Stanford. The letter notes, “Freedom of expression does not include the right to threaten or harass others and prevent them from engaging as equal participants in campus life.” If there are students who want to engage only in disruption and not dialogue, then perhaps it’s time for Harvard, an institution committed to open inquiry through free dialogue, to also make it clear that it’s not the place for them.

1636 Forum Board of Overseers Election:

– In the current Harvard Board of Overseers election open until May 14, 1636 Forum recommends voting for Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98), Theodore Chuang (AB ’91, JD ‘94), and Scott Mead (AB ’77) (in ballot order). Learn more about the candidates, our endorsement process, and how to vote.

Events:

– On April 23 at 4 p.m. ET , HLS professor Randall Kennedy , who wrote a Crimson op-ed arguing Harvard should ban mandatory DEI statements, will speak in a live webinar with audience Q&A alongside Heterodox Academy President John Tomasi and UC Davis Law School professor Brian Soucek on “ history of diversity statements in higher education, today's DEI landscape, and what it means for the future of faculty hiring .” Register here .

– HBS Dean Srikant Datar is hosting two events for alumni in Texas to “hear how the School is taking the lead on addressing critical challenges facing business and society.” The events will be in Houston on April 25 from 6-8:30 p.m. CT and in Dallas on April 26 from 12-2 p.m. CT . Register here .

– Bill Ackman (AB ‘88, MBA ‘92) is hosting a Zoom Q+A with willing Board of Overseers candidates for alumni to hear them answer questions on May 1 at 11 a.m. ET.  He will post on X for information on how to participate.

FYIs:

HARVARD AND PENN STRUGGLE WITH FUNDRAISING

The Penn Fund, University of Pennsylvania’s annual giving program, has seen a 21% decline in donations compared to this time last year. The 2024 fund also has fewer donors than any other year since at least 2020. Harvard is facing similar challenges though fewer details are available.

STANFORD TELLS ADMITTED STUDENTS IT VALUES DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT, WON’T TOLERATE HARASSMENT

Stanford interim president Richard Saller and provost Jenny Martinez (JD ‘97) sent a letter to all admits to the class of 2028 emphasizing the importance of diversity of thought, free expression, and constructive disagreement at Stanford. They note, “Freedom of expression does not include the right to threaten or harass others and prevent them from engaging as equal participants in campus life.” 

REFORM-MINDED FACULTY LEAD PUSH FOR FACULTY SENATE

A group of high-profile Harvard faculty, including Council on Academic Freedom (CoAF) member University Professor Danielle Allen (AM ‘98, PhD ‘01) and CoAF co-president Professor of Philosophy Edward Hall, called for the creation of a faculty senate . The group says that the current state of the university has caused faculty members to have “regular and intense conversation with one another across schools for the first time in generations,” which “represents an opportunity for faculty to support university leaders in important strategic decision-making about our shared future.”

HBS WORKING GROUP SAYS IT WILL BE HARD TO ASSESS ITS OWN SUCCESS

HBS – arguably the school most focused on assessing success and concrete outcomes for organizations – is struggling to do so with its Classroom Culture and Norms Working Group, established last fall by HBS Dean Srikant Datar. Co-chair HBS professor Suraj Srinivasan believes there is little room for improvement in HBS classroom culture: “ the baseline and foundation is already high —we’re closely examining and learning, and finding specific cases where there might be a chance to do better.” Co-chair HBS professor Joseph Badaracco said the group has a “ very preliminary draft of recommendations .” When asked, “How will you measure success?” Badaracco said, “ Outcomes are tough to specify and assess ,” while Srinivasan said, “ One measure of success is the process itself . Success is in having the group, thinking about these issues, and engaging the community collectively and individually.”

HJAA OVERSEER ENDORSEMENTS ANNOUNCED, JOINING PRIOR CRIMSON, 1636 FORUM, HAFFS ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Harvard Board of Overseers election is open for voting through May 14th. The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) announced its top 5 candidates in ranked order: 1. Scott Mead (AB ’77); 2. Ming Min Hui (MBA ‘15); 3. Theodore Chuang (AB ’91, JD ‘94); 4. Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98); 5. Juan Sepulveda (AB ‘85) . As reported last week, the 1636 Forum recommends voting for Tim Ritchie, Theodore Chuang, and Scott Mead (in ballot order) and has suggested considering Ming Min Hui as well. The Crimson endorsed those three candidates in that order (as well as a fifth, Danielle Feinberg AB ‘96); Harvard Alumni for Free Speech (HAFFS) has endorsed the first three also; and Harvard’s chapter of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR HA+) has recommended that its members take a look at Tim Ritchie, although they did not formally endorse any of the candidates. 

DEI ADVOCATE NAMED PRESIDENT OF BOARD OF OVERSEERS

Vivian Hunt (AB ’89, MBA ‘95) was named president of the Board of Overseers for the 2024-2025 academic year and is therefore likely to be one of the three Overseers on the next presidential search committee. Tyler Jacks (AB ‘83) will be the vice chair of the board. In a 2020 interview , Hunt said, “ a neutral position – that is meritocratic, that is good and is treating people evenly – isn’t good enough .”

COLUMBIA PRESIDENT TESTIFIES IN CONGRESS, CALLS IN NYPD TO HANDLE STUDENT PROTESTS

Columbia President Minouche Shafik testified before Congress regarding antisemitism on campus. When asked if calling for genocide violates Columbia’s code of conduct, she said, “Yes, it does.” She shared information of ongoing investigations into faculty members, alarming academic freedom advocates and the national president of the American Association of University Professors, who said, “public naming of professors under investigation to placate a hostile committee” was “a dangerous precedent.” The next day, Shafik called in the NYPD to address an unauthorized encampment of protesters. Shafik said the school had “tried through a number of channels to engage with their concerns and offered to continue discussions if they agreed to disperse.” The NYPD arrested at least 108 protesters and removed the encampment. New York Mayor Eric Adams said during a press conference, "Students have a right to free speech. They do not have the right to violate university policies and disrupt learning on campus.”

DANIELLE ALLEN: ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND FREE SPEECH ARE DIFFERENT – BOTH MATTER

Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and University Professor Danielle Allen (AM ‘98, PhD ‘01), who is a member of the Council on Academic Freedom, published the second in a five-part Crimson series that will “ identify and assess the difficult ethical questions surfaced by Harvard’s recent leadership crisis .” In her second piece , Allen distinguishes between academic freedom and free speech to argue for the importance and place of each. She advocates for a general principle of “ wherever spaces and events are integral to academic work and experience, they should be off-limits to disruption ” but acknowledges complex situations and says, “such questions deserve our more direct attention.”

UNIVERSITIES CHANGE PROTEST POLICIES AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT

The New York Times covered changing campus disruption policies and their enforcement at universities across the US, including the University of Michigan, MIT, NYU, Brown, Vanderbilt, and Columbia. These schools are now more aggressively enforcing their policies in light of student protests that “not only are interfering with their ability to provide an education, but…also have left many students, particularly Jewish ones, fearing for their safety.” Administrators describe how the nature of student protest has changed since the Vietnam War era: Vanderbilt chancellor Daniel Diermeier said he and other university presidents all now encounter students “not interested in dialogue. When they are invited for dialogue, they do not participate. They’re interested in protesting, disruption . That’s different.”

GSAS DEAN: FREE SPEECH IS NOT A HARVARD-SPECIFIC ISSUE

GSAS Dean Emma Dench told The Crimson that free speech is not a Harvard-specific issue but rather an “international issue.” Dench said GSAS engaged nonprofit Essential Partners this year to facilitate private discussions with students about free speech and will collaborate with the nonprofit to develop “interventions” regarding concerns raised in the listening sessions.

TRANS UNDERGRAD: EVERYONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SPEAK ON TRANS ISSUES

E. Matteo Diaz (AB ’27), who identifies as transgender , published an op-ed in The Crimson, “ Everyone Should Be Allowed To Speak on Trans Issues .” Diaz says, “trans advocates are often quick to shut [opponents] down, rather than engage with the nuances their arguments present. But you shouldn’t need to be trans to speak about trans issues … more speech is better than less …In the wake of legislation that directly restricts speech on gender identity, one would expect the trans community to understand the paramount importance of a culture of open inquiry.”

HILLEL OBJECTS TO ADL CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM REPORT CARD

Last week, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) gave Harvard a failing grade (an ‘F’) in its Campus Antisemitism Report Card . Adam Lehman, CEO and President of Hillel International, criticized the ADL Report Card to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency : “We do not believe it is constructive or accurate to try to assign grades to schools as a means of assessing the totality of Jewish student experience at those campuses. Efforts to do so, however well-intended, produce misleading impressions regarding the actual Jewish student experience at those schools.” Rabbi Gil Steinlauf, executive director of Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life, called Princeton's “F” grade in the ADL report card “misleading” and said, “I can say very clearly that Princeton is a great place to be Jewish ” with administrators and faculty who are “deeply supportive of our Jewish students.”

HARVARD FILES TO DISMISS ANTISEMITISM LAWSUIT, CONGRESSMAN SPEAKS OUT

Harvard filed a motion to dismiss Kestenbaum et al. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College . Harvard says that the task force is addressing antisemitism and needs to be given time to work. Ritchie Torres , the congressman of lead plaintiff and HDS student Shabbos Kestenbaum, wrote a letter to Harvard “to express serious concerns about the antisemitic harassment and intimidation that has been directed against Shabbos Kestenbaum…Accountability…is long overdue.”

CRIMSON REVIEWS GARBER’S FIRST 100 DAYS

The Crimson found Interim President Alan Garber (AB ’77, AM ’77, PhD ’82) “enjoys broad support among affiliates for his early efforts to guide Harvard out of crisis even if he has not managed to completely avoid controversy.” The newspaper’s review highlights Garber’s “updated protest guidelines that banned protests in dorms, libraries, and classrooms without prior reservation;” creation of the task forces on antisemitism and anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias, including his controversial selection of Professor of History Derek Penslar as co-chair for the antisemitism one; and establishment of working groups on open inquiry and institutional voice. 

THEO BAKER: TIKTOK IS PART OF THE PROBLEM

Jewish Insider’s “Inside the Newsroom” featured a discussion with Theo Baker, author of “ The War at Stanford .” Baker believes this generation of students got hooked on TikTok during the pandemic and they are used to getting soundbites about contentious and complex issues that way : “injustice and inequity amplified by cellphone.” 

HARVARD IOP POLL OF AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS: 33% UNCOMFORTABLE SHARING POLITICAL VIEWS ON CAMPUS

The 47th edition of the Harvard Youth Poll by the Institute of Politics (IOP) at HKS found, “ One-third of college students are uncomfortable sharing their political views on campus; young Democrats are more comfortable and more likely to be politically engaged.”

30+ HLS EDUCATORS PUSH BACK ON NEW INTERPRETATION OF PROTEST RULES 

According to The Crimson , more than 30 HLS educators, including Council on Academic Freedom member HLS professor Lawrence Lessig, signed a letter to interim HLS Dean John C.P. Goldberg stating they wished “to affirm my commitment to protecting student speech–even speech that I may disagree with–from unreasonably expansive and historically unfounded interpretations of protest guidelines .” The student presidents of HLS’s liberal-leaning American Constitutional Society and conservative-leaning Federalist Society added a joint letter to Goldberg, and HLS professor Nikolas Bowie (JD ‘14, PhD ‘18) added a companion letter. Bowie highlighted the difference between HLS administration treatment of student organizing in the Caspersen Student Center lounge against Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination and the University’s investment in fossil fuels and how the “recent invocations of Palestine have inspired a novel clampdown by the law school that is doing little to stop the protests but much to threaten [the lounge’s] character as a space for all students.”

COUNCIL ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM MEMBER NAMED DEAN OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Professor of Philosophy Sean Kelly , who is a member of the Council on Academic Freedom, has been named dean of the Arts and Humanities. Kelly is currently Faculty Dean of Dunster House and chairs the FAS committee reviewing the request to dename Winthrop House.

STANFORD PROF OFFERED HKS DEANSHIP

Interim President Alan Garber (AB ’77, AM ’77, PhD ’82) offered the role of HKS dean to Stanford Professor of Political Science Jeremy M. Weinstein (AM ‘01, PhD ‘03) . Princeton professor Jacob Shapiro, who advised Weinstein during his PhD, told The Crimson that “given the ‘brutally hard process’ of making institutional changes in large universities, Weinstein’s success in co-founding and leading [the Stanford Impact Labs] suggests that he could bring innovative change to the Kennedy School .” A student Weinstein advised praised him for hosting a Shabbat dinner at his home earlier this year for Stanford undergraduates.

WORKING GROUPS STUDY NEUTRALITY AND EXPERIMENT WITH HOUSE EVENTS

In an interview with the Harvard Gazette , co-chair of the Institutional Voice Working Group HLS professor Noah Feldman (AB ‘92) emphasized that his group’s naming was intentional: “The Kalven Report uses the word neutrality, and it gets used a lot. One of the things that we have to explore is whether that framework is the most useful framework .” Co-chair of the Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group Professor of Government Eric Beerbohm shared upcoming experiments in the undergraduate Houses: “this spring, residential tutors and proctors are putting on events that get students engaged with values where they live …to connect open inquiry in the classroom to the openness to share who one is in the Houses and in one’s extracurricular groups.”

ATLANTIC WRITER: BAN MANDATORY DEI STATEMENTS BUT REAFFIRM IMPORTANCE OF VALUES LIKE DEI

In The Atlantic , Conor Friedersdorf evaluated the Crimson op-eds on mandatory DEI statements in faculty hiring and promotion by HLS professor Randall Kennedy, who advocated for their abolition , and Professor of Philosophy Edward Hall, who advocated for updates . After Friedersdorf spoke directly with Hall, he concluded, “ Colleges should fully abolish diversity statements in hiring––while…clarify[ing] that lots of values, including DEI, can bear on research and teaching ––and that healthy universities allow faculty members to contest how best to define and prioritize such values. The alternative, where the DEI bundle is treated as so important as to justify coercion, is anti-diversity and authoritarian. ”

OP-ED: ROMNEY FOR HARVARD PRESIDENT The President of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), Daniel Rosen, AB ’96 , published an editorial in the Washington Post calling for Mitt Romney ( MBA ’74, JD ’75) to be named the next President of Harvard . Citing Romney’s open letter to Harvard last fall, Rosen writes, “ R omney has the moral courage and independence to identify the root sources of antisemitism at the university , address the decline in Jewish student applications and enrollment, and teach a new generation of young adults the importance of mutual tolerance and civilized coexistence.” In January, Romney spoke as part of Harvard Dialogues, where he expressed that “free and vigorous exchange of ideas is a necessary part of higher education and life, but said that a line should be drawn once physical violence is threatened .” 

UNIVERSITIES RENAME DEI OFFICES WITHOUT CHANGING WHAT THEY DO

In “ With State Bans on DEI, Some Universities find a Work-Around: Rebranding ,” the New York Times reports on the renaming of DEI offices at universities across the US and questions if the substance of the offices’ work has actually changed. David Bray, a gay professor at Kennesaw State University, where the DEI department was renamed opined, “It’s the same lipstick on the ideological pig .” To combat rebranding efforts, Tennessee legislators introduced a bill in January to ban any university DEI office “regardless of name or designation .” Ultimately, the bill was unanimously voted down once the Knoxville Jewish Alliance “expressed concern that the ban would limit how the University of Tennessee reached out with support for Jewish students .”

PANEL: CORPORATION AND OVERSEERS HAVE NO INCENTIVE TO ENFORCE RULES

Harvard Business School Club of New York and the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) co-sponsored a talk with undergraduate Nim Ravid (AB ’24) and Yale School of Management Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld (AB ’76, MBA ’78, DBA ’81) and Harvard Law School Professor Jesse Fried (AB ’85, AM ’89, JD ’92). Fried asserted that Harvard admissions must screen out the radicals , that people charged with enforcing the rules are afraid of offending radicals, and that unlike corporations, there is no incentive for Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers to ensure rules are enforced because there are no shareholders to push them out. Watch the recording here .

MIT PROF: STUDENT GROUPS BLACKLISTING FACULTY

In “ Pressure Grows on MIT President To Stop Antisemitic Incidents ,” RealClearPolitics describes how two student groups “recently targeted several Israeli and Jewish MIT professors and the students who work with them in an attempt to disrupt and end their academic research projects.” Several weeks prior, MIT President Sally Kornbluth had committed “to allow[ing] academic and research work to continue undisturbed” when she suspended the student group Coalition Against Apartheid. Protesters complain that targeted professors’ projects are helping the IDF. One MIT professor said, “These students are using peer pressure to try to tear apart research groups. They’re starting to blacklist faculty.”

PRINCETON PROF: GRATEFUL TO TEACH STUDENTS DEDICATED TO OPEN INQUIRY Princeton professor Robert George had a refreshing post on X that went viral this week: “ …We’ve just spent three weeks addressing profoundly divisive issues, including abortion, euthanasia, and sexual morality and marriage. My students represent a range of points of view on these matters. Some–across the spectrum–hold their convictions quite passionately. Yet in our class discussions they’ve discussed the issues in a thoughtful, civil, mutually respectful, genuinely truth-seeking spirit. All of them were challenged by readings making the case for ideas they disagreed with. I know this for sure, because I assigned to them the best readings known to me for the competing positions. But instead of allowing themselves to be “triggered” by these challenges, they engaged the work they were assigned, making a sincere and sustained effort to assess fairly the arguments advanced . What more can a teacher ask? How blessed I am to teach these young men and women.”

April 12, 2024 — Welcome Back SATs

THE BIG IDEA: WELCOME BACK SATs

I am very happy to see that Harvard officially announced bringing back the SAT requirement for all incoming students this past week.  On one hand, it is unsurprising.  Several other universities have already reinstated the test as mandatory (Harvad isn’t leading here), and University leaders have been hinting it would happen for months now; however, it is a heartening - if small - step in the right direction nonetheless.

For those that believe that the purpose of Harvard is academic excellence, adding back objective testing is going to be a key component of the path ahead.  Only with objective tests can we have any sort of conversation about whether Harvard is admitting the best students, and - just as importantly - graduating from the College (and other schools) kids who are academically accomplished.

Is testing everything? no, of course not.  Is a kid who scores lower on the SAT but came from a place of zero privilege and support demonstrate more academic potential then someone who scored higher but had every advantage in life?  Yes, quite possibly.

But without objective tests for students on the way (and the way out), it is simply impossible to have any conversation about excellence at all.  So it is very good to see the university inching back in that direction (and it being willing to admit that it made a COVID era mistake to begin with).  

Hopefully sooner than later the University will start doing rigorous exit testing in addition to entry testing, and be able to demonstrate that kids leave the university more accomplished than they were on the way in.

-Sam

In the current Harvard Board of Overseers election open until May 14, 1636 Forum recommends voting for Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98), Theodore Chuang (AB ’91, JD ‘94), and Scott Mead (AB ’97) (in ballot order). Learn more about the candidates, our endorsement process, and how to vote.

Events:

– Harvard Business School Club of New York and Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) are sponsoring a virtual talk, “ Antisemitism on Campus: Challenges for University Leadership at Harvard ” featuring Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies at Yale School of Management Jeffrey Sonnenfeld (AB ’76, MBA ’78, DBA ‘81) , HLS Professor Jesse Fried ( AB ’85, AM ’89, JD ’92) , Nim Ravid (AB ‘25) , and moderated by Jason Klein (MBA ’86) on April 15 from 6-7 p.m ET.  Register here .

– The Harvard Alumni Association and the Harvard Club of Washington, D.C. , is hosting “ A Conversation with Alan Garber ” at Four Seasons Hotel, 2800 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, on April 16 from 6:30-8:30 p.m ET. The event has reached capacity, but interested alumni can email [email protected] to be added to the waitlist. – Harvard Business School Club of New York (HBSCNY) is hosting “ Primer on the Israel-Palestinian Conflict ” with Einat Wilf (AB ’96) in conversation with Boston College Professor Peter Krause , a former HKS fellow, on April 16 from 6-8 p.m . ET , in Midtown Manhattan. Register here .

–A debate over the proposition, "Resolved that sex is biological and binary and gender identity is no substitute for sex in social policy," will be hosted by the MIT Free Speech Alliance, Students for Open Inquiry, and MIT’s Adam Smith Society at MIT’s Wong Auditorium on April 17 from 7-8:30 p.m ET. The debate will be hosted by Nadine Strossen (AB ‘72 JD ‘75), Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and Harvard Alumni for Free Speech advisory board member. Instructions on how to watch the live stream or the recording can be found here .

FYIs:

HARVARD REINSTATES STANDARDIZED TESTING FOR APPLICANTS

Harvard announced that beginning with students applying for admission in fall of 2025 (class of 2029), the college will require SAT or ACT scores . In “ exceptional circumstances ,” the college will accept other standardized tests, like AP or IB exams. The new policy is a reversal to the college’s prior commitment to remain test-optional through the admissions cycles in the fall of 2026 (class of 2030). In explaining the decision to reinstate the requirement, Harvard cited the research of Harvard Professor of Economics Raj Chetty (AB ‘00, PhD ‘03) , who said, “Critics correctly note that standardized tests are not an unbiased measure of students’ qualifications, as students from higher-income families often have greater access to test prep and other resources. But the data reveal that other measures — recommendation letters, extracurriculars, essays — are even more prone to such biases. Considering standardized test scores is likely to make the admissions process at Harvard more meritocratic while increasing socioeconomic diversity .” Chetty collaborated on this research with HKS and HGSE Professor David Deming (PhD ‘10), who is a finalist in the search for the new dean of HKS. Harvard’s new policy follows in the footsteps of Yale, Dartmouth, and MIT.

DANIELLE ALLEN PROPOSES UPDATE TO HARVARD VALUES STATEMENT

Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and University Professor Danielle Allen (AM ‘98, PhD ‘01), who is a member of the Council on Academic Freedom, published the first in a five-part Crimson series that will “ identify and assess the difficult ethical questions surfaced by Harvard’s recent leadership crisis .” In her first piece , Allen proposes an update to the little-known Harvard University Statement of Values: “Perhaps this time the first value should be a steadfast commitment to academic inquiry ; the rest of the tenets appropriately support this overarching purpose. And perhaps this time, we could make sure the statement is at last broadly shared.”

ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE GRADES HARVARD: ‘F’

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) gave Harvard a failing grade (an ‘F’) in its Campus Antisemitism Report Card , which evaluates three categories: publicly disclosed administrative actions and policies, jewish student life on campus, and antisemitic and anti-Zionist incidents on campus. The ratings were based upon a response to ADL’s questionnaires to colleges and students, information from other campus stakeholders like Hillel and Chabad groups, and public information, including federal Title VI investigations and lawsuits. For administrative actions and policies, Harvard fell short because it only partially fulfilled three of the criteria: antisemitism included in its code of conduct and policies, advisory council to address antisemitism, and mandatory antisemitism education for students and staff . 

PROF. HALL: KEEP DIVERSITY STATEMENTS IN FACULTY HIRING BUT UPDATE THE PROMPT

In his own Crimson op-ed, Professor of Philosophy Edward Hall, co-president of the Council on Academic Freedom , responded to HLS professor Randall Kennedy’s Crimson op-ed, which called for the abolishment of mandatory DEI statements in faculty hiring. Hall argues that instead of eliminating diversity statements, Harvard should use the statements to ask faculty candidates for hiring and promotion how they intend to promote true diversity and inclusion, in line with the principles of academic freedom and excellence , “to reaffirm a healthy understanding of these values.”

FIRE PRESIDENT: 2024 WILL BREAK RECORDS FOR CAMPUS CENSORSHIP

Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) president Greg Lukianoff announced , “ 2023 was the worst year ever for campus deplatforming attempts — and 2024 is already on track to blow it out of the water ,” based on FIRE’s Campus Deplatforming Database . The database shows one deplatforming attempt at Harvard in 2024 so far: an attempted disruption of Senator Joe Manchin’s talk at the Institute of Politics. As Lukianoff notes, shout-downs, heckler’s votes, and disinvitations are “mob censorship, and a grave threat to free speech.” Lukianoff suggests several solutions for universities, including “a firm commitment to institutional neutrality, getting rid of administrative bloat, and inculcating an understanding and appreciation of First Amendment principles in students from their first day on campus.”

TO COMBAT RACISM HARVARD SHOULD REVIEW ALL FACULTY RESEARCH FOR PLAGIARISM, UNDERGRAD ARGUES

In her Crimson op-ed “ A Witch Hunt Is Targeting Black Harvard Faculty ,” Maya Bodick (AB ‘26) argues that scanning the work of all its faculty for plagiarism is the best way for Harvard to combat “racially-motivated allegations” of plagiarism by black female faculty, many of whom are scholars on race. Bodnick believes “it’s very troubling that the Harvard administration has let [Christopher] Rufo and his allies dominate the plagiarism conversation …this review will at last set the story straight and reveal that plagiarism is an issue for many academics across demographics and disciplines — it’s not just a Black, female, DEI issue.”

HARVARD TO CO-HOST JEWISH AFFINITY CELEBRATION AT GRADUATION FOR FIRST TIME

The Crimson reports that this spring Harvard will be an official co-host of Harvard Hillel’s annual graduation affinity celebration for Jewish students . In the past, Hillel has hosted unofficial versions while Harvard has officially organized separate events for certain minority groups called Affinity Celebrations Honoring Black, Latino, Indigenous, Arab, LGBTQ+, first generation and low income students. Harvard came under criticism last year when Christopher Rufo tweeted , “Harvard provided racially segregated ‘affinity group’ celebrations at its commencement…Whites and Jews were the only groups not provided with celebrations.” The university added its “Affinity Celebration Honoring Asian, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Desi-American Graduates” in 2022 after student activists pushed for one. The affinity celebrations are open to all students . 

COUNCIL ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM MEMBER ELECTED TO FAS FACULTY COUNCIL

Organismic and Evolutionary Biology professor David A. Haig, member of the Council on Academic Freedom, is 1 of 6 newly elected members of the Harvard Faculty of Arts & Sciences (FAS) Faculty Council. Haig told The Crimson that he ran for the role to address ways Harvard has become “increasingly dogmatic” and bureaucratic over the last two decades: “I would like to contribute to reversing some of these trends and for students to find Harvard a more intellectually challenging environment. I hope to be able to add my voice to making Harvard a more enjoyable and caring environment for all members of its community.” The council is “ arguably the University’s most influential faculty committee .” The council has already met twice this semester with interim President Alan Garber (AB ’76, AM ‘77, PhD ‘82) and once with Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker (AB ’81).

HARVARD UNDERGRADS FORM ACADEMIC FREEDOM ORG

Three students launched the group Harvard Undergraduates for Academic Freedom . One leader, Lorenzo Ruiz (AB ’27), described it as a “ non-partisan environment to facilitate ‘broad-based support’ for institutional neutrality, free exchange, and free expression.” The organization, which is not yet recognized as an official student group, hosted a panel discussion and screening of “The Coddling of the American Mind” this week. The film, based on the eponymous 2018 New York Times best-selling book by FIRE President Greg Lukianoff and NYU professor Jonathan D. Haidt, follows four college students to illustrate how “ current college campus policies foster overprotection and limit academic freedom — which contributes to a Gen Z mental health crisis .” This week Ruiz also published a column in the Crimson, “ Time for the Left To Reclaim Academic Freedom .”

HUMANITIES PROFESSORS DEBATE IF THEIR FIELD NEEDS MORE OR LESS ACTIVISM

As part of the Harvard English Department’s English Debates series, Harvard Professor of English and African American Studies Jesse McCarthy and Cornell professor Caroline Levine debated if the humanities should be more or less activist . According to the Harvard Gazette, Levine believes “scholars in the humanities should take more concrete action” and finds it “profoundly disturbing” that literary writers and scholars often refrain from presenting specific solutions. The Harvard Gazette summarized her remarks as, “ inaction in the humanities is harmful and furthers the interests of the fossil-fuel industry , which has long used public relations campaigns on recycling and carbon footprints to place the burden of ending climate change on individual consumers, rather than on corporate polluters.” McCarthy countered by arguing that humanities scholars are “interested in interpretation. For us, interpretation is necessarily open-ended. If it weren’t, not only would it be politically very dangerous, but it would cease to be recognized as humanistic inquiry to us .”

USF HISTORY PROFESSOR: POLITICAL EXTREMISM ENDANGERS JEWS BUT CAN BE MITIGATED WITH FREE SPEECH AND ENFORCING LAWFUL BEHAVIOR In his Tablet article, “ Jew Hatred is Not the Problem at Penn (or Other Universities). Radicalism Is: Understanding the true problem is the only way to land an effective solution ,” USF professor emeritus Tony Fels writes that the “problem [is] not the expression of group hatred toward Jews…. but rather the radical politicization of higher education to the detriment of the free expression of ideas, which constitutes the lifeblood of any college. Threatening in this way to undermine the very idea of a university, political extremism may also predictably endanger the safety and well-being of individuals—Jews among them —who live, study, or work at one” leading him to conclude, “ Political radicalism on campus can best be mitigated by colleges adhering to twin principles: encouraging wide-open speech and placing strict physical limits on campus protests ” or as he later puts it: “reasoned argument and the enforcement of lawful behavior.”

OVERSEERS ELECTION CONTINUES: 1636 FORUM BACKS RITCHIE, CHUANG, MEAD The Harvard Board of Overseers election is open for voting through May 14 th .  As reported last week, the 1636 Forum is recommending Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98) , Theodore Chuang (AB ’91, JD ‘94) , and Scott Mead (AB ’97) (in ballot order) and has suggested members take a look at Ming Min Hui (MBA ‘15) . The Crimson endorsed those four candidates in that order; Harvard Alumni for Free Speech (HAFFS) has endorsed the first three also and Harvard’s alumni chapter of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR HA+) has recommended that its members take a look at Tim Ritchie, although they did not formally endorse any of the candidates. Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) and Harvard Business School Jewish Alumni Association (HBSJAA) will issue endorsements next week.  

April 5, 2024 — Prepare Overseers for the Most Important Topics Today

THE BIG IDEA: PREPARE OVERSEERS FOR THE MOST IMPORTANT TOPICS TODAY

This week, we endorsed three candidates for the current Overseers election – Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98), Theodore Chuang (AB ‘91, JD ‘94), and Scott Mead (AB ‘77) (in ballot order). When deciding who to endorse, we looked for candidates who are aligned with our values, will prioritize our issues, and will drive outcomes on the Board of Overseers. In our announcement , we outlined why we endorsed each candidate. Not every candidate aligns with every member of the 1636 Forum community on every important issue, and we felt it was important to highlight key areas of potential disagreements. We strongly urge you to vote for our recommended candidates and encourage other Harvard alumni to do so too.

Almost all candidates (including two of our endorsements) had not thought deeply on institutional neutrality, especially not in a manner reflected in a crisp stance in their public statements. This was a common challenge we found across the candidates on important issues, including the mission of Harvard, academic freedom, constructive discourse, and diversity & inclusion. Our endorsement process, which consisted of extensive candidate interviews and detailed review of their submissions to us as well as to The Crimson , Harvard Magazine , Coalition for a Diverse Harvard , Harvard Alumni for Free Speech and FAIR Harvard Alumni+ , illuminated for us that this is due to three main reasons:

  1. Candidates lack awareness and knowledge of topics like institutional neutrality, open inquiry, and academic freedom. Many candidates still imagine campus culture to be as it was when they were students at Harvard. It takes time and energy to understand these complicated topics, why they are important, and how they manifest on university campuses today.
  2. The terminology of DEI and free speech have become ubiquitous, ambiguous, and politicized, making it hard to discern what people actually mean. If you only skimmed the candidate submissions to various publications and alumni groups, it would be hard to tell the difference between most of the candidates. The meaning of concepts and terms like neutrality, equity, safety, or justice vary widely from person to person. Only through specific and comprehensive discussions with candidates could we distinguish these differences and determine where the candidates stood on the issues most important to us.
  3. These principles are easier to profess in the abstract and much harder to apply in a consistent manner when presented with specific situations. It’s easy to say you believe in something like institutional neutrality; it’s harder to determine how someone would apply those positions in practice. In the example of institutional neutrality, what are the exceptions? Some would say, ‘being on the wrong side of history,’ or ‘when it affects students.’ Who decides what the wrong side of history is? When is an issue large enough that ‘being on the wrong side of history’ requires a statement from the university?

The murkiness of candidate views is understandable; these issues are complex and evolving. But Harvard Overseers need a deep and nuanced understanding of these topics in order to grapple with them in this critical moment for the university – and Harvard alumni need to know where the candidates truly stand so they can vote for the candidates who can best realize their vision of what Harvard should be.

So what can we do about it? Harvard and HAA can do three things immediately to improve the situations:

  1. The HAA Committee to Nominate Overseers and Elected Directors (“ Nominating Committee ”) should explain why it chose each candidate specifically for the ballot. Today the Nominating Committee publishes a list of general criteria it considers in candidates, such as “a broad concern for interests of Harvard as a whole,” and announces the candidates it is appointing directly to the ballot with only their biographies. Meanwhile, petition candidates like Sam Lessin must make their case to thousands of alumni to have any hope of reaching the threshold of write-in nominations just to make it onto the eventual Overseers ballot. To help alumni voters and the HAA understand where there may be gaps, the Nominating Committee should explain how each candidate’s unique skills and experiences make them right for Harvard at this time.
  2. Candidates should participate in forums that show alumni voters how they actually differ from each other. Alumni deserve to know where the candidates really stand on the issues so they can vote for those who align most closely with their ideals for Harvard's future. An organization like the HAA, The Crimson, or Harvard Magazine should facilitate a public forum (e.g., debate) where candidates are forced to differentiate themselves with specific stances on the most important issues, not the vague, indistinguishable written statements they made to The Crimson, Harvard Magazine, and various alumni groups. Our endorsement process interviews benefitted from posing hypotheticals, such as if a candidate would want Harvard to issue a statement in light of various domestic and international crises, and voters deserve similar clarity without dozens of hours of research.
  3. Harvard and the HAA should inform the candidates for and the members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers on these topics and the current state of affairs on campus. Let’s set up Overseers candidates (and current board members) for success and help them arrive at well-informed, well-developed positions by the time they participate in a public forum. Harvard should introduce an orientation for candidates and current board members on open inquiry, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity – and their state on campus today. Teach it seminar style: present and debate various frameworks for these concepts and case studies of how different universities have experimented with them. Not everyone will come to the exact same conclusion – and that’s okay. Just like the culture of open inquiry that campuses need today, it’s best for Harvard board members to understand these topics and engage in constructive debate over them in search of Veritas – and what’s best for Harvard.

Events:

– HBS Jewish Alumni Association is hosting “ Combatting Antisemitism: A Conversation with HBS Leadership ” on April 9 at 11 a.m. ET on Zoom. Four HBS senior administrators will be present: Jana Kierstead (Executive Director of MBA and Doctoral Programs and External Relations), Professor Matthew Weinzierl (AB ‘00, PhD ‘08) (Senior Associate Dean, Faculty Chair of the MBA Program), Professor Kristin Mugford (AB ‘89, MBA ‘93) (Senior Associate Dean for Culture & Community, Co-chair of the Antisemitism Working Group), and Professor Joshua Margolis (AM ‘97, PhD ‘97) (Co-chair of the Antisemitism Working Group). The session will not be recorded and is exclusive to registered HBSJAA members. Register for HBSJAA here and then for the specific session here .

– Harvard Alumni Association ( HAA ) is hosting a virtual talk “ Democracy, Higher Education and the Road Ahead” with University Professor Danielle Allen (PhD ‘01) on April 11 from 5-6 p.m ET. She will discuss how “higher education serves as a cornerstone for democracy, examining its role in fostering informed citizenship, cultivating critical thinking skills, and promoting civic engagement.” RSVP here .

– Harvard Business School Club of New York and Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) are sponsoring a virtual talk, “ Antisemitism on Campus: Challenges for University Leadership at Harvard ” featuring Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies at Yale School of Management Jeffrey Sonnenfeld (AB ’76, MBA ’78, DBA ‘81) , HLS Professor Jesse Fried ( AB ’85, AM ’89, JD ’92) , Nim Ravid (AB ‘25) , and moderated by Jason Klein (MBA ’86) on April 15 from 6-7 p.m ET.  Register here . – Harvard Business School Club of New York ( HBSCNY ) is hosting an-in person talk, “ Primer on the Israel-Palestinian Conflict ” with Einat Wilf (AB ’96) in conversation with Boston College Professor Peter Krause , a former HKS fellow, on April 16 from 6-8 p.m ., in Midtown Manhattan. Register here .

–A debate over the proposition, "Resolved that sex is biological and binary and gender identity is no substitute for sex in social policy," will be hosted by the MIT Free Speech Alliance, Students for Open Inquiry, and MIT’s Adam Smith Society at MIT’s Wong Auditorium on April 17 from 7-8:30 p.m. The debate will be hosted by Nadine Strossen AB ‘72 JD ‘75, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and Harvard Alumni for Free Speech advisory board member. Instructions on how to watch the live stream or the recording can be found here .

FYIs:

HARVARD ANNOUNCES OPEN INQUIRY AND INSTITUTIONAL VOICE WORKING GROUPS

This Thursday, Interim President Alan Garber and interim provost John Manning announced two new working groups: “Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group” and “Institutional Voice Working Group.” The first group is addressing viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement on campus. It is chaired by Professor of Government Eric Beerbohm and Radcliffe Dean and Professor of Law at HLS / Professor of History Tomiko Brown-Nagin. Council on Academic Freedom co-president and Professor of Law Jeannie Suk Gersen (JD ‘02) will serve on the committee. The second group is considering when Harvard should take positions as an institution. It is chaired by Professor of Law and Chair of the Society of Fellows Noah Feldman (AB ‘92) and Professor of Philosophy Alison Simmons. The group’s members include Council on Academic Freedom members Director of the Belfer Center and HKS Professor Megan O’Sullivan and HGSE Academic Dean and Professor of Education Martin West (PhD ‘06).

HLS PROF KENNEDY: DEI STATEMENTS ARE IDEOLOGICAL PLEDGES OF ALLEGIANCE

HLS Professor Randall L. Kennedy has an op-ed in The Crimson opposing mandatory DEI statements, noting, “Universities are under a legal, moral, and pedagogical duty to take action against wrongful discriminatory conduct. But demands for mandatory DEI statements venture far beyond that obligation into territory that is full of booby-traps inimical to an intellectually healthy university environment.”

STANFORD’S NEW PRESIDENT: ACCLAIMED SCHOLAR WHO BELIEVES IN INSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY

On Thursday, Stanford University announced current Stanford Graduate School of Business Dean Jonathan Levin will take over as president this August . Levin’s selection holds much promise for getting Stanford back on track given the state of campus affairs captured in The Atlantic article we highlighted last week, “ The War at Stanford .” In a New York Times interview after the announcement, Levin reiterated what he’d told the Stanford faculty senate earlier this year: “universities should ‘ get out of the business of making statements on current events .’ Instead, he said, ‘we should focus on encouraging students to listen to different perspectives and engage in dialogue and form their own opinions.’” A winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, one of the most prestigious awards in economics, Levin is among the most accomplished scholars in his field . 

COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION MEETS K-STREET LOBBYISTS Politico reports on the emerging cottage industry of lobbyists and lawyers advising colleges on “education crisis communications.” The risks include, but go beyond antisemitism, which is a component of the “reputational threats” they are facing.  Schools also seek to overturn the 2017 excise tax on university endowments and address threats by former President Trump to “fine or tax the endowments of institutions that discriminate ‘under the guise of equity.’”  Advisors quoted spoke of political “demagoguing” and “gamesmanship” with one complaining that the problem was politicians “misconstruing [the] words” of university officials because they “lack…interest…in understanding the nuance around campus policies.” The article also notes that Republicans, who are leading this charge, were responsible for making colleges offer more generous financial aid packages by the mid 2000s.

SOME ENDORSEMENTS FOR BOARD OF OVERSEERS CANDIDATES HAVE BEEN RELEASED

As reiterated above, the 1636 Forum recommends voting for Tim Ritchie (MPA ‘98), Theodore D. Chuang (AB ‘91, JD ‘94), and Scott Mead (AB ‘77) for Overseer (listed in ballot order) and suggests considering Ming Min Hui (MBA ‘15) as well . The Crimson endorsed those four candidates (in that order of its preference) with Danielle Feinberg (AB ‘96) coming in fifth but without a strong endorsement from the publication. FAIR Harvard Alumni+ (Harvard’s alumni chapter of Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism) said it declined to endorse because no candidate 100% aligns with FAIR’s principles but suggested its members should “Take a close look at Tim Ritchie for Overseer as his views align on some key issues including free speech, viewpoint diversity, civil discourse, institutional neutrality, and a broad commitment to diversity of all kinds.” HAFFS (Harvard Alumni for Free Speech) endorsed Ritchie, Chuang, and Mead. The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) and Harvard Business School Jewish Alumni Alliance (HBSJAA) have not yet announced endorsements. HJAA reports its endorsements will not be made before the third week of April. The Coalition for A Diverse Harvard’s and its aligned organizations’ endorsements are here .

VANDERBILT SAYS IT HAS KEYED THE LOCK ON FREE SPEECH AND CAMPUS CLIMATE

The Wall Street Journal has an uplifting article, “ Free Speech is Alive and Well at Vanderbilt ,” about how the school has stimulated a culture of free expression and peaceful protesting by promoting civil, respectful discourse and by uniformly enforcing rules, including those governing time, place and manner of activism .

ALLAN BLOOM TURNED OUT TO BE THE NOSTRADAMUS OF CAMPUS DEVELOPMENTS

In The Free Press , Thomas Chatterton Williams writes about how UChicago Professor of Philosophy Allan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind , predicted what has happened in American higher education: “ Bloom saw that American students, in the name of openness, are steeped in a potent and paradoxical relativism that actually closes off the intellect to enduring standards .” Williams cites Bloom’s warning “that the collapse of civic education would result in teaching that ‘the Constitutional tradition was always corrupt and was constructed as a defense of slavery’—which is a surprisingly accurate summary of  The 1619 Project ”.

DEI MAY BE FALLING OUT OF FAVOR IN CORPORATE AMERICA BUT STILL A FACTOR AT UNIVERSITIES

Axios reports that DEI is in disfavor both from lawsuits alleging anti-white racism and because of corporate management’s dislike of the practice. In response to the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard questionnaire , candidates for the Board of Overseers voiced strong support for various forms of DEI initiatives and goals. However, they were somewhat non-specific or equivocating about diversity statements in faculty hiring in their responses to the FAIR Harvard Alumni+/Harvard Alumni for Free Speech questionnaire . One said he looked forward to learning more about them.  Another said she found them useful but said they could be mandatory or optional. Others wanted prospective hires to demonstrate support for DEI but not via a diversity statement. Another noted excellence should be the most important criterion for hiring.  

UNIVERSITIES DESCEND “INTO FACTORIES OF ANTI-SOCIAL PEOPLE AND IDEAS”

Quillette has a provocative article, “ Academia Versus Civilization: The antisemitism of campus leftism may be incidental.  The Barbarism is the Point ,” with this thesis: “We have subsidized and excused universities’ descent into factories of anti-social people and ideas.  A band-aid will not suffice.”  The “moral rot” described was also explored in an article Quillette published in the fall: “ The Return of the Progressive Atrocity: It is the responsibility of Western activists to know who and what they support, and to separate themselves–openly and decisively–from programs and regimes that are predicated on violence and repression .”  For a historical take from Nazi Germany on the same phenomenon, check out former Harvard professor Niall Ferguson ’s article in The Free Press: “ The Treason of the Intellectuals: Anyone who has a naïve belief in the power of education to instill morality has not studied the history of the German universities in the Third Reich .”

AMENDED COMPLAINT FILED

The Amended Complaint in Alexander Kestenbaum and Students Against Antisemitism, Inc., v. President and Fellows of Harvard College was filed last Friday pursuant to the court-ordered schedule.  It is thirty pages longer than the original complaint and includes incidents that have occurred since the original filing as well as past incidents not previously described.  Among the many provocative claims are that a former student who uttered an antisemitic slur towards an Israeli speaker, then-Cabinet Member Tzipi Livni, at an HLS event is now employed as an instructor at HLS. Another claim: A student Plaintiff asked a Harvard faculty member who tweeted that Zionists could not work in public health if he had thought through the implications of his public statements and their effect on his Jewish and Israeli students required to take his courses. The amended complaint says the student was reported by the professor to a Dean who then accused the student of “failing to uphold Harvard’s values by ‘extrapolating views and assuming intent.’”

March 29, 2024 — Who to Vote for in the Overseers Election Starting Monday

THE BIG IDEA: WHO TO VOTE FOR IN THE OVERSEERS ELECTION STARTING MONDAY

The Harvard Board of Overseers election is the main way that most Harvard alumni can influence the direction of the University. Even though Sam didn't make it on the ballot this year, it's really important you vote in this election.

Over the past several weeks, 1636 Forum community members have been asking for our endorsements from the candidates on the Overseers ballot for this year. We have been talking to all of the candidates on the ballot to understand where they stand on the important issues facing Harvard. While no one is perfect, we think that there are several candidates who would make meaningful progress getting Harvard back on track – focusing on academic excellence and depoliticizing the university. Look out for our recommendations early next week, with our take on why they are the right choice for Harvard, and hopefully for you. We'll also include a simple guide to voting. Elections open April 1 and close May 14 at 5 p.m. ET.

And don't forget to vote – this matters!

Events:

– Harvard Chabad is hosting Muslim Women Speak on Monday, April 1, at 7 p.m. ET in Sever Hall, Room 103, 25 Harvard Yard.   Chabad is partnering with American Muslim and Multi-Faith Women’s Empowerment Council (AMMWEC), a group of Muslim women, activists and advocates whose “work centers around uplifting humanity, and addressing violent extremism, terrorism, antisemitism and hate, interfaith, collaborations, gender inequities, and religious freedom.”  Reserve tickets here .

– “Dialogue & Action in an Age of Divides,” a series of conversations sponsored by Harvard and eight other Massachusetts universities, is hosting an online event “Constructive Dialogue in the Age of Social Media” on Tuesday, April 2, from 5-6 p.m. ET . Register here .

– HBS Jewish Alumni Association is hosting a discussion with HBS Leadership regarding the school’s actions to address antisemitism on Tuesday, April 9, at 11 a.m. ET on Zoom. The session will not be recorded and is exclusive to registered HBSJAA members. Register for HBSJAA here .

–A debate over the proposition, "Resolved that sex is biological and binary and gender identity is no substitute for sex in social policy," will be hosted by the MIT Free Speech Alliance, Students for Open Inquiry, and MIT’s Adam Smith Society at MIT’s Wong Auditorium on Wednesday, April 17, from 7-8:30 p.m ET. The debate will be hosted by Nadine Strossen AB ‘72 JD ‘75, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and Harvard Alumni for Free Speech advisory board member. Instructions on how to watch the live stream or the recording can be found here .

FYIs:

IOP PANEL: ADMISSIONS CAN DIVERSIFY AMERICA’S LEADERS

The Institute of Politics ( IOP ) live streamed an event, “ Diversifying America’s Leaders: The Role of College Admissions ,” with Harvard Professor of Economics Raj Chetty AB ‘00, PhD ‘03 and HKS Academic Dean and Professor of Political Economy David Deming PhD ‘10 . Much of the data highlighted by the speakers can also be found in the 2023 New York Times article on their new research on how family income is related to admission at selective colleges. “​​At the most elite private colleges, like those in the Ivy League, students from rich families have an even greater advantage, getting in at much higher rates than other similarly qualified students. Take two students with the same test score. At Harvard, those from the top 1 percent attended at 1.5 times the rate of a typical student with that score . The poorest students with that score, those from the bottom 20 percent, also attended at a higher rate, but there were far fewer of them.” Chetty and Deming supported the SAT as an admissions metric with one noting everyone can study for it and they don’t need to be wealthy to buy experiences and have access to a sport, which also boost admissions chances.

DEI’S EFFECTS ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM

The Harvard Safra Center for Ethics co-sponsored a panel in its Civil Disagreement series entitled “ Academic Freedom, DEI & the Future of Higher Education ” with the Harvard College Intellectual Vitality Initiative and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. HLS Professor of Law Jeannie Suk Gersen JD ‘02 said that DEI made students less likely to express themselves freely in class but cheered the HLS DEI office’s expanded mission promoting academic freedom (instituted by then-HLS Dean, now-interim Provost John Manning AB ’82 ) because HLS administrators dismissed a complaint by her students who objected to an assignment where they would have to argue both sides of Lawrence v. Texas (which held the TX statute criminalizing same-sex intimacy unconstitutional). Students said they would be “harmed” by arguing Texas’ point of view. Most of the panelists criticized DEI while also defending some of it, including one who felt that legislatures had no place “interfering” with it.

STEVEN PINKER : HOW HARVARD’S FREE SPEECH POLICY BECAME A NATIONAL JOKE

Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker PhD ‘79 told the Reason podcast that “Harvard’s free speech policy was so selectively prosecuted that it became a national joke” in the episode, “ What Went Wrong at Harvard .” Host Nick Gillespie starts with Pinker’s quote to the Boston Globe: “ Using the wrong pronoun is now a hanging offense but calling for another Holocaust depends on context .”

HLS STUDENT GOV’T VIOLATES OWN RULES

HLS Student Government held an online vote that ended Friday (3/29) morning for a resolution demanding Harvard divest including from “academic programs…that aid the ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine and the genocide of Palestinians.” This process seems to have violated the HLS student body’s constitution and bylaws. Two members of the Student Council who later resigned in protest also said the bylaws were broken. The student body found out only by word-of-mouth about the divestment resolution and method to vote on it (online). After the online vote was scheduled, a second in-person session on Thursday was then scheduled that featured some debate. Jewish students said that they were ignored when they emailed the Council to find out what happened at the first meeting, for the minutes and where and when that meeting was taking place, while others were given this info. The Crimson appears to have some, but not all, of the story’s details.

THE RETURN OF HISTORY 10…IN NAME ONLY

In 2006, Harvard scrapped History 10, a survey of European history. It is coming back in the fall….or at least the “History 10” part of the course title is.  It will now be called “ History 10: A History of the Present ” with assignments being exclusively essays (no exams).  Instead of surveying history, according to The Crimson, the course “ boasts a completely new format, methodology and goal ”.  Three professors will instruct three separate modules: “memory,” “ancestry and genealogy,” and “rights.” The course format will include a weekly question box for student questions, a “riff” on contemporary headlines and comments at the end of each module by the two professors not teaching the module about how they would have approached it. One of the instructors, Professor of History Maya Jasanoff AB ’96 , told The Crimson, “The idea that we would require everyone to do a European history survey just seems like a thing very much of an earlier generation.”

STANFORD STUDENTS HAVE CHANGED: ‘A FACTORY OF UNREASON’

The Atlantic has a comprehensive article, “ The War at Stanford: I didn’t know that college would be a factory of unreason ,” by Stanford student Theo Baker. Stanford’s campus crisis appears more extreme than Harvard’s, with students advocating for or saying that they wouldn’t mind the murder of Jews, President Biden, and possibly Stanford administrators. Baker notes, “People tend to blame the campus wars on two villains: dithering administrators and radical student activists. But colleges have always had dithering administrators and radical student activists. To my mind, it’s the average students who have changed .” He sees self-righteousness and a lack of desire to understand or empathize as key issues: “The real story at Stanford is not about the malicious actors who endorse sexual assault and murder as forms of resistance, but about those who passively enable them because they believe their side can do no wrong . You don’t have to understand what you’re arguing for in order to argue for it. You don’t have to be able to name the river or the sea under discussion to chant “From the river to the sea.” This kind of obliviousness explains how one of my friends, a gay activist, can justify Hamas’s actions, even though it would have the two of us—an outspoken queer person and a Jewish reporter—killed in a heartbeat. A similar mentality can exist on the other side: I have heard students insist on the absolute righteousness of Israel yet seem uninterested in learning anything about what life is like in Gaza.”

March 22, 2024 — What To Do About ‘Activist-Academic’ Grad Students

THE BIG IDEA: WHAT TO DO ABOUT ‘ACTIVIST-ACADEMIC’ GRAD STUDENTS

Talking about issues of bias among tenured professors is a flashy high-profile discussion, but it is also a very hard problem to fix quickly — it will take decades to cycle out tenured professors, pursue buyout strategies, revise the concept of tenure to be not ‘for life’, and change policies to attract more intellectual diversity to the ranks of Harvard professors.

A far more tractable and immediately addressable problem is solving for ‘activist-academic’ grad students who at Harvard play a major role teaching and hold a lot of sway over classroom and on-campus culture.

The problem is pretty straight-forward.

In the last few decades it has become envogue for graduate students to cast themselves in the role of ‘activist-academics’ rather than just academics.  

I get why.  

It used to be that the value of the University was to stand apart and pursue truth and knowledge, but the narrative of the day is all about ‘impact’ … and the reality is that most academic work is, unfortunately, not very impactful. It is just truth for the sake of truth.

So, if you are pursuing that course and justifying your usually uneconomic decision to yourself, why not cast yourself as an hyphen activist who doesn’t just pursue truth, but looks to use the university setting to have ‘impact’ and shape young hearts and minds?

What do you do about it?

Well, presuming you see the problem with self activist-academics, especially when they represent a stilted world view… there are a few things to think about in concert:

Establish Tighter Standards and Policies for Grad Student Behavior:  Grad students need clearer policies and enforcement around separating ‘activism’ from the classroom. They can do what they want on their time in Boston common, but in the classroom and on Harvard’s private property / with Harvard’s private resources they need to be held accountable as academics, not academic-activists.  The university should also consider social media policies for grad students … Newsrooms have standards of what their reporters can / cannot say on social media, why wouldn’t universities do the same for their non-tenure teachers.

Pay Grad Students More for Teaching:  Let’s face it, grad students are massively underpaid for their work.  Academia follows a ‘foot binding’ system of chronically under-paying teachers in return for advancement.  If you paid more and made graduate school an option that appealed to more non-activists, you would have more diversity because the jobs would be in-demand vs. only selecting people who have to come up with novel and frequently counter-productive narratives for how they are spending their time.

Encourage More Flexibility Between For-Profit and Academic Worlds: One of Harvard’s most insane policies makes it nearly impossible for tenured professors to engage in for profit startups and work.  This forces many diverse voices out of the university vs. working on ways to keep them in and leaves behind only a certain subset of voices.  If graduate school was more open to for-profit engagement and work and built tighter bonds with industry, such that someone could be doing graduate school while also using their skills and knowledge in the for-profit world we could drive towards change. 

In an ideal world, the University would be purely focused on academics.  That is its purpose and its justification for its tax status and supposed special ability to sit outside of politics and influence.

In an ideal world, graduate students would be there to learn and teach with the goal of pure knowledge and not defining themselves as ‘activists’ as they do…

But if this is the reality we face today / if not enough folks culturally believe in pursuit of truth to staff the teaching ranks, then policies need to get clearer, and we need to make the non-tenured teaching jobs much better and more flexible or you will only get what we have today, a very particular set of folks doing the job. 

- Sam

Events:

– John Rosenberg , editor of Harvard Magazine , will speak on the university’s strengths and weaknesses and paths forward from this tumultuous time at his two “Harvard Challenged” talks in Florida: first on Sunday, April 7, 2024, 5-6:30pm ET in Orlando (register here ), and second on Monday, April 8, 6-8pm in Boca Raton (register here ).

– The Harvard Alumni Association and the Harvard Club of Washington, D.C., are hosting Harvard Interim President Alan Garber (AB ‘77, PhD ‘82) for an event with alumni on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, from 6:30-8:30pm ET in Washington, D.C. Register here .

FYIs:

PENNY IS THE PROBLEM

Harvard Professor of History James Hankins published an essay (Law and Liberty) where he places the blame for Harvard’s decline and “woke capture” squarely on Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker (AB ‘81) . To right the university, Hankins calls for a “strong young president committed to our traditional purposes,” but he believes “we will not find such a leader if the same person who was responsible for the disaster of Claudine Gay remains in charge of choosing her successor… The Harvard Corporation has shown itself incapable of getting rid of the person or persons who have been responsible for dragging the university’s name in the mud for the last six months and reducing the value of Harvard degrees….one must expect the Corporation’s current disgraceful behavior to continue.”

HOPE FROM RAKESH

Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana (AM ’97, PhD ’98) expressed hope that admitted students will choose Harvard notwithstanding campus and institutional controversies and said, “I also want to let them know that Harvard is not a perfect institution. It’s made up of human beings, and it’s always in the process of becoming.” As The Crimson noted in the article, while some people have attributed the 17% decline in early decision applicants to the College for the Class of 2028 last fall, the deadline for that early cycle was over a month before then-President Claudine Gay (AB ‘98) sparked widespread outrage with her congressional testimony on December 5. Therefore all eyes are on Harvard to release the number of applicants in the current regular decision cycle.

PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MONTH

Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee has replaced its “Israel Apartheid Week” with “Palestine Solidarity Month” March 25 to April 2. The organization described the month’s activities as “events to immerse Harvard students in Palestinian history and affirm the need to end the occupation during this pressing time. From cultural heritage workshops to forums of resilient Palestinian organizers, this month will aim to bring the utmost solidarity to Palestine. ” (This is clearly quite wordsmithed / solitary ‘to’ vs solidarity ‘with’ etc - SL) 

HOUSE DEMANDS

The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce sent new document demands to Harvard, UPenn, Cornell, and MIT this week. With regards to Harvard, Committee Chair Rep. Jason T. Smith (R-MO.) said the committee aims “to understand what universities like yours are doing, if anything, to change course drastically and address what has gone unaddressed for years.” One of the 13 questions the committee asked Interim President Alan Garber (AB ‘77, PhD ‘82) to answer this time: “Are you concerned about the resignations from [the presidential antisemitism] task force? Have you taken any actions to address the concerns of the individuals who resigned?” 

(MAN)NING IS THE RIGHT MAN

In “ I’m a Progressive. Here’s Why I’m Glad Harvard’s New Provost Isn’t ,” Lorenzo Z. Ruiz (AB ’27) argued strongly in support of Interim Provost Dean Manning (AB ‘82), who began as provost on March 14. With regards to Manning’s conservative legal philosophy, Ruiz has “serious concerns” yet he says, “But for the purposes of the University, we ought to concern ourselves with Manning’s fitness as an educator and administrator. In that criterion, he excels…Manning has sought to make Harvard what it should be — what its mission of free intellectual development and exchange demands it be. Progressive students like myself have for too long lacked the opposition that would enable us to become more refined, empathetic, and effective advocates of our causes…I may disagree with him politically, but I’d like to believe that the Harvard Manning envisions is a place where I could say so to his face. Where we could have it out. Where ideas could clash and trade and change. Where everyone could learn by being challenged.”

ANTISEMITISM LAWSUIT

In response to last week’s David French column in the New York Times, Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy criticized Kestenbaum and Students Against Antisemitism v President and Fellows of Harvard College a/k/a the antisemitism lawsuit in his Crimson op-ed “ Everything Wrong with the Legal Complaint Calling Harvard Antisemitic . ” Kennedy’s chief critique is that the plaintiffs' argument “poses a direct and serious threat to academic freedom.” He cites the example of the plaintiffs’ claim that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” which, if “given legal force by the courts…would expel from discussion a large body of work by serious intellectuals, including writings by Jewish anti-Zionists.” Instead, Kennedy concurs with his colleagues: “as professor Nadine Strossen (AB ’72), professor Steven A. Pinker , and a host of other evangelists for academic freedom have bracingly insisted, the university is a place where even the most odious ideas should be refuted, not banned.”

PREMATURELY CELEBRATING TITLE VI

Max Eden , a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Josh Hammer , Newsweek senior editor-at-large, published “ Dismantling Leftist Indoctrination on Campus ” in City Journal . They caution against prematurely celebrating the outcome of a federal Title VI civil rights complaint regarding antisemitism at Middlebury College . While the complaint has led the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to open an investigation, “the most likely outcome is that OCR’s top official, Assistant Secretary of Education Catherine Lhamon , will do with this investigation what she usually does: leverage them to mandate more left-wing administration on campuses. The last thing Middlebury’s Jewish students need is more DEI funding, but that’s about all that the college need fear from the Biden administration.”

FAIR FIRING

Cathy Simpson, the CEO of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Public Library, was fired this week because she espoused some of the values of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) in her op-ed “ Censorship and what we are allowed to read .” In her op-ed, Simpson highlighted “hidden library censorship” of two kinds: “the vigorous defense of books promoting diversity of identity, but little to no defense of books promoting diversity of viewpoint, and the purchase of books promoting ‘progressive’ ideas over ‘traditional’ ideas.” FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris (JD ‘91) commented on the firing: “FAIR is a nonpartisan organization committed to protecting civil liberties and promoting universal equality. Our mission and founding principle are embodied in the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr…To this end, FAIR opposes discrimination against anyone for ANY purpose, however well-intentioned.”

HEATED CONFRONTATION

The mystery of who was responsible for tearing down at least some of the 10/7 hostage posters was solved by an unidentified individual. Harvard Chabad posted the heated confrontation between the individual and a contract groundskeeper on Instagram . According to The Crimson , the worker told the person filming the exchange, “It is my fucking job,” but university policy dictates that all posters be removed from posting areas in Harvard Yard on Mondays and Thursdays, not Wednesday morning when the filming occurred . Harvard has directed the employer not to assign the worker to campus moving forward. A university spokesperson said the school “strongly condemns” the worker’s actions.

HARVARD ISLAMIC SUSPENSION

The Harvard Islamic Studies Program’s X account was suspended on February 22 nd for “violating rules against platform manipulation and spam.” According to The Crimson, the program's executive director Harry Bastermajian believes the suspension may be motivated by Islamophobia or racism and said “Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies feels under attack right now .” X has not ruled on the account’s appeal yet.

CANCELING Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and Religious Literacy

After two panelists backed out, Harvard Safra Center and postdoctoral fellow Chance Bonar (PhD ‘23) canceled “Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and Religious Literacy,” a panel he had organized for March 21st at Lowell House. Harvard Divinity School student Shabbos Kestenbaum criticized the would-be speakers on X : “ The moderator published the horrific antisemitic cartoon last month. Co-panelist Al-Suwaidan equates Zionism with Nazism+and praises Arab terrorists. Welcome to Harvard.” Complaints like his prompted the Lowell House Faculty Deans and the Safra Center to withdraw institutional sponsorship, ultimately leading to the cancellation. The center issued a statement noting, “… the event itself was finalized and announced without our Center’s review and approval. The composition of the event is not in keeping with the principles of civil disagreement we uphold at the Center, which demand representation from multiple perspectives, particularly on contentious issues.”   

March 15, 2024 — Testing

THE BIG IDEA: TESTING

We are going to look back on this period and come to the realization that one of Harvard’s biggest mistakes was stepping back from testing in two areas.

The first area is SATs / entrance tests, which Harvard stopped requiring.  

Almost everyone I have spoken to - including administrators and professors - have acknowledged that this was a big mistake, and one which there seems to be indication the university will actually fix sooner than later. It is well documented that tests like the SATs are actually the best way to remove bias from the admissions process… and if anything there is some history that the ‘essays’ and other forms of admissions criteria were added in earlier ages specifically to keep people the university in that era wanted out out (jews at the time)… With the clear loss in their Supreme Court case, and to anyone that believes in academic excellence, it is a no brainer that the SAT needs to come back along with race-blind admissions (just as the university celebrates ‘need blind’ admissions)

The second interesting area to consider is ‘exit testing’

In some departments and in earlier ages there were rigorous testing requirements at the end of college to prove what you had learned / mastered. We all know, however, that there is real truth to the fact that the hardest part of Harvard is getting in. Once you are a student there are ample lax departments and ways to approach the school that allow you to graduate having not learned very much at all. If the school wants to reassert the core value of academic excellence there is no question that rigorous testing in math, science, writing skills, etc. need to be added back to the senior year as a graduation prerequisite. There are obvious direct benefits to this. Employers, grad programs, etc. can once again build trust that Harvard graduates can do the work / cut it, and have used their college years well in an academic sense. However, I think there are all sorts of less obvious secondary effects to the right exit exams. It will help attract the right students who want to study and learn and are willing to do hard work. It will put pressure on the professors and lecturers to focus on teaching and academic excellence rather than activism. And, it will select for students who know they can do the work, and/or are willing to put potentially more than four years for their college degrees if that is what it takes for them to be able to achieve the criteria for getting a harvard degree.

There are many variants on how to approach both entrance and exit testing… but those that care about the university look for tactical wins to help the school back towards its core mission of academic excellence it seems clear that bringing back rigorous testing in a real way has to be part of the equation.  

Harvard needs to be Hard.

EVENTS:

– Interim President Alan Garber has invited alumni to a virtual forum March 19, 2024, at 12 p.m. EST and to send him questions when they RSVP .

– The Harvard Club of Chicago is hosting a Zoom conversation with Gordon McKay Research Professor of Computer Science at Harvard Harry Lewis (AB ‘68, AM ‘73, PhD ‘74) on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 7-8:15pm ET. Lewis is the co-president of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard and former Dean of Harvard College. Register here .

– Harvard Chabad is co-sponsoring “Get Our Sisters Out of Hell: 19 Women Held Hostage by Hamas for over 150 Days” with Run for Their Lives, Hostages and Missing Families Forum, and several Jewish organizations for Women’s History Month on March 17, 2024 from noon-1 p.m.  (exhibit opens at 11:30 a.m.) at 38 Banks Street, Cambridge.  A rally will follow at a time and place to be specified later for those who RSVP .  

– Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee  is hosting a “Pal101” “ teach-in ” on March 19, 2024  at 7:00 p.m. at Sever 102. One of the HLS student co-hosts Israa Alzamli, a naturalized US citizen of Gazan descent,  the Boston Globe saying “ Gaza literally broke out of prison ”, and co-authored the statement by the ~30 Harvard student groups blaming Israel for Hamas’ October 7 th attacks.

FYIs:

– “ How to fix the Ivy League ” (The Economist) highlighted an under-discussed issue with the illiberal shift of America’s top universities: the “threat is to the global standing of America’s elite institutions. Internecine conflict over social-justice ideology saps the appeal of American universities, not just to Americans but to potential students from other countries too.” Losing out on the best and brightest students by not truly offering them an environment that cultivates academic excellence jeopardizes the United States’ position in the world. The Economist piece proposed changes to help the Ivies address this issue by rebuilding public trust:

  • “Make admissions fairer by eliminating ancestral privilege and reintroducing the consideration of standardised test scores”
  • “Embrace academic freedom at all times–not just when it suits them–and stop policing the views of students and faculty”
  • Eliminate “compulsory diversity statements”
  • Reduce the size of the “rapidly expanding administrative apparatus that has enabled all this dysfunction” and of “many universities’ overstuffed corporate boards”
  • “Employ fewer cheerleaders for the university president and more tough, independent voices”

– In “ College Are Putting Their Futures at Risk ,” New York Times columnist Pamela Paul delved into the problems that arise when universities take on political missions and lack viewpoint diversity. Jennifer Burns (AB ‘98), a Stanford history professor and director of graduate admission, noted that applicants for graduate admissions often now see academia as a venue for political activism. Her Stanford colleague, law professor Diego Zambrano (JD ‘13) decried the issuing of official, public, political statements by universities and their presidents. Zambrano highlights two major issues: First, these statements tend to amplify extreme voices and chill moderate and dissenting viewpoints. Second, university administrators must engage in the futile exercise of simplifying complicated topics “to address in a single email thorny subjects that scholars at their own institutions spend years studying.”

-  New York Times columnist and Columbia University professor John McWhorter weighed in on Ivy League schools like Yale, Dartmouth and Brown ( but not Harvard ) reinstituting the SAT in “ No, the SAT Isn’t Racist ”:

“I just cannot square a conception of Blackness…asserting that exactitude is white, or that submitting Black people to standardized tests is a racist microaggression. No coherent admissions assessment would use the SAT as the sole measure of an applicant’s potential. However, the elimination of such tests from the process is less a favor to than an insult leveled against Black intelligence. I am glad to see the fashion fade.” 

- The Connecticut legislature is poised to ban legacy admissions for both public and private colleges, with lawmakers saying Yale and other colleges are non-profits, so they must act with the public trust in mind, especially since they get government tax breaks.

- HMS students accuse AMA of genocide by staging a protest during AMA President Jesse Ehrenfeld's speech. HMS dean George Daley had warned students on Monday that disruption would result in "long-term professional consequences.

-  Dr. Dara Horn AB ‘99, PhD ’06, former Harvard Antisemitism Advisory Group Member, will give a transcribed interview to the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce on March 18, 2024.

- The “ Bell Collective for Critical Race Theory ,” a Harvard Law School student group that bills itself as a “collective of radical law students” who seek to “study and understand law, policy and customs as an unjust system of domination perpetuated by historically privileged groups” is hosting its 5 th annual conference on March 20-22, 2024 – virtually and with physical location(s) unspecified – and with a March 19, 2024 “pre-conference event” from 12:15-1:20 p.m., “Censored at Harvard Law Review” at Hauser 102. The Collective’s website says the group is advocating for HLS to “establish a critical race theory program, hire CRT tenured faculty, more racially diverse faculty, and more womxn.” 

-  Biostatistician and infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Martin Kulldorff was dismissed by Harvard Medical School. He~ wrote about his dismissal ~ in City Journal .  In October 2020, Kulldorff co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration , which opposed school and other total lockdowns in favor of focused protection strategies, such as Sweden’s targeted policies for the elderly, who were more vulnerable.  Various Harvard affiliates criticized Kulldorff as “fringe,” “cultivated by right-wing think tanks,” and not willing to debate anyone. Yet when he tried to organize a debate, no one accepted. .  His conclusions? “When scientists have different takes on topics of public importance, universities should organize open and civilized debates to pursue truth.  Harvard could have done that—and it still can, if it chooses…..My hope is that someday, Harvard will find its way back to academic freedom and independence.” 

-  David French urges New York Times readers to read the lawsuits against Harvard and MIT in “ Harvard, M.I.T. and Systemic Antisemitism .” He writes: “I spent virtually my entire legal career defending free speech on campus, including the free speech of Muslim students and staff members . …. I have never seen such comprehensive abuse directed against a vulnerable campus minority group as I’ve seen directed at Jewish students and faculty since Hamas’s terror attack on Oct. 7.

March 8, 2024 — Does Harvard Yard Need an Art Project From JR?

THE BIG IDEA: DOES HARVARD YARD NEED AN ART PROJECT FROM JR?

I had the chance to attend an event with the French artist known as 'JR' this week and participate in an art project.  He spoke to a small group about his large-scale art installations at places like the border of the US and Mexico, in Israel with pictures of Israelis and Palestinians, at the Louvre, and in US maximum security prisons (you can see a TED talk he gave here ).  While his work is stunning and well recognized globally, the thing that he highlighted in these big-scale projects is that his art is about the process of bringing people together to really see each other and be able to have discussions vs. simply shouting at each other.  

Interestingly for an artist, he also brought real data to show how his projects - like his project at the US maximum security prison helped the guards and the inmates all connect and directly see each other, which led to a dramatically increased rate of prisoners being released for good behavior.  It led me to wonder, while we all try to work on policy changes and a new curriculum, should we get JR to come and do a large scale project helping different sides and voices connect in Harvard Yard?  

Should we ask him to work with students and faculty and do his next large-scale installation on Widner and Mem Church?  I could see this being successful at Harvard, and serving as a template for other schools... Will it solve all our problems?  Of course not... but inviting JR in to help heal the community and encourage conversations couldn't hurt -- and if his work is good enough for the Louvre it is good enough for Harvard Yard.  -Sam

EVENTS:

Interim President Alan Garber has invited alumni to a virtual forum Tuesday, March 19, 2024 , at 12 p.m. EST and to send him questions when they RSVP .

FYIs:

Chairwoman of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Rep. Virginia Foxx said that Harvard “ absolutely failed ” to comply in good faith with the subpoena of documents relating to campus antisemitism.   Foxx said that the 1,500 pages turned over were insufficient and duplicative in part of documents previously produced.  Harvard spokesman Jason Newton disagreed with Foxx’s characterization and insisted that “Harvard denounced antisemitism on our campus and have [sic] made clear that the University will continue to take actions to combat antisemitism in any form.”

Harvard Divinity School student Shabbos Kestenbaum testified before the House Education and Workforce

Committee’s Antisemitism Roundtable , highlighting Harvard student SideChat texts, defaced posters, and the antisemitic cartoon posted by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and the African and African American Resistance Organization.  Kestenbaum says that to date no member of the Harvard community has been held to account for the examples of antisemitism he cited in his testimony .  Undergraduate Maya Bodnick ‘26 echoed this sentiment in her editorial, “ Antisemitism Continues to Thrive in Garber’s Harvard ” as did Charlie Covit (AB ’27) in an appearance on NewsNation.

The New York Post reported that anonymous complaints were filed with the Massachusetts Attorney General and the Massachusetts Board of Overseers accusing Bill Lee AB ‘72 of having a conflict of interest for his “pecuniary interest” in earning $42 million in fees from Harvard for his law firm WilmerHale whilst serving in a trustee/director relationship at the university.  Among the issues raised: “Considering the vast resources entrusted to Harvard as a Massachusetts nonprofit corporation, do the circumstances with Bill Lee and Wilmer Hale raise questions about whether Harvard and its board have the necessary corporate governance procedures to avoid conflicts of interest, conflicts of duty or similar issues….?” 

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States (and former American) Michael Oren penned Trials of the Ivy League for his Substack newsletter “Clarity,” describing his stint as a visiting professor at Harvard in 2006 when he taught a seminar called “The History of Zionist Diplomacy.” The Harvard Center for Jewish Studies also extended him an offer to teach for a semester in fall of 2021, but it was revoked due to the objections of the Kennedy School and the College. Oren described the Harvard of 2006: “I was warned by students to watch my language.  Saying ‘mankind,’ for example, instead of ‘humankind’ could get me in trouble.”  He also described an art history colleague telling him she could never get tenure at Harvard because she was “not a Marxist.”

The Crimson reports that due to the war in Gaza, Harvard’s Office of International Education has suspended study-abroad programs in Israel and Harvard’s Mignone Center for Career Success has paused funding for Israel-based internships through the fall of 2024.   However, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (“HSPH”) is still funding students to go to Birzeit University in the West Bank to take its controversial summer 2024 “Palestine Social Medicine” course .  The course syllabus says it covers “ settler colonialism and its manifestations in Palestine .”.

At a Q&A during a recruiting session at Harvard Law School, students accused representatives from major law firm Skadden of supporting “genocide” and “apartheid” by workin g closely with the Israeli government and advising groups like the Israeli Securities Authority .  One student questioned the firm’s commitment to “Diversity and Inclusion” by supposedly failing to fire someone who she claimed called Palestinians “animals”

and said, “F*ck you, Black Lives Matter,” on social media.

Interim President Alan Garber has initiated a task force to study institutional neutrality .  Proponents of the same argue that commenting on the day’s events runs contrary to universities’ core mission, which is education, not the promotion of so-called social justice.  Others argue for the status quo or some modification thereof, claiming that university officials are supposed to provide “pastoral care” and/or should weigh in on the major events of the day.

In an opinion piece for the New York Post (“ Is there hope for Harvard? It matters more than you think ”),  Dr. Carol Swain, a former Vanderbilt professor whose work President Emeritus Claudine Gay plagiarized,. argues it’s critical to fix the situation at Harvard rather than give up, pointing out that “Ivy League graduates make or break policy in America.”

Notwithstanding recent travails, Harvard is still students’ No. 1 “dream school ” according to CNBC… This is all fine and well showing the power of harvard’s brand, but is in contrast to the reality of declining early applications from possibly qualified students.

The deadline to nominate candidates to be considered for approval by the Harvard Alumni Association

(“HAA”) “Nominating Committee”(aka the NomCom) to run for the 2025 Board of Overseers and Harvard Alumni Association Board of Directors elections is May 31, 2024.  Candidates can be nominated by filling out the form here . This is the regular method of becoming a candidate for the Board of Overseers.  Sam Lessin (AB ’05) will be running independent of HAA again this upcoming year, but it never hurts to nominate others through the regular way process.

Jonathan Klick, a law professor at UPenn, wrote an op-ed in the school newspaper that many UPenn

alumni are circulating. Klick argues that UPenn should replace holistically evaluating college applicants with “a standardized test score floor and then randomly choose its admittees from the pool of applicants meeting that requirement …Setting a floor helps make sure the matriculating class has the requisite cognitive ability to succeed but otherwise limits concerns about ideology being privileged over academic merit.  Random selection (as opposed to just taking the highest test scores) recognizes that standardized tests may be too blunt to make fine distinctions among students and generates a campus population that approximates the population of smart young adults along many more dimensions than we currently consider.” (I think this is overly simplistic but a reasonable position to take -sl)

March 1, 2024 — Is It Time for Faculty Buyouts?

THE BIG IDEA: IS IT TIME FOR FACULTY BUYOUTS?

There is no question that over the last several decades the faculty at Harvard and other universities has gotten less and less intellectually diverse, and in the process the educational environment at elite institutions has gotten more and more ideologically stilted.  How did we get here?  There are several contributors, but included among them are:

(a) For-profit research oriented opportunities have expanded dramatically, shifting the intellectual diversity of people who still aspire to be University professors.  Historically if you wanted to do research all your opportunities were really at universities, but today in many disciplines - economics, computer science, hard sciences, etc. the for-profit world offers amazing opportunities to do groundbreaking work and get paid very well – so people who are attracted by that (they want to do great work and make money) look beyond the academy and have great options…. This new reality means that the folks left behind at universities represent -generally speaking- only a small segment of the full ideological spectrum (Harvard btw, is particularly bad about this because unlike other elite universities they aggressively block professors from outside for-profit and entrepreneurial activities).

(b) As the world has rapidly changed, a mismatch has evolved between demand for research and endowed chairs. Over time you end up with endowed chairs and tenured professors in places they are no longer needed.  Professors are misallocated to the demands of actual scholarship / excellence, and teaching.  I.e. Hist and Lit has (sadly) declined precipitously as a major, but

you still have exactly the same number of tenured professors teaching it as you did two decades ago.  Applied math, on the other hand, has almost no tenured faculty despite enormous demand.  

If you were designing a University with the realities of 2024 in mind, perhaps you would grant professors 10 or even 20 year appointments, but life tenure?  No way.  

So as the university looks to fix itself, yes - they should work hard where they have leverage to attract the right JR and non-tenured faculty with real intellectual diversity to balance and enhance the environment…. But what do you do about the tenured professors and their ideological tilt?  If you don't have the gumption to fire them, is it time to offer them buy-outs to leave?  I doubt that the corporation or president has the will to explore paths like this, but it might be a win-win for everyone.

EVENTS:

Interim President Alan Garber has invited alumni to attend a virtual forum Tuesday, March 19, 2024 , at 12 p.m. EST and to send him questions when they RSVP .

President Larry Summers will be speaking to students and alumni at Women in Defense, Diplomacy and Development’s (“ W3D ”) Chatham Chat about “ peacemaking

and conflicts, 2024 elections, the implications of campus tensions, and more” on Monday, March 4th, 2024 , from 12:15 - 1:15 p.m. EST. Questions can be sent with the RSVP form.

FYIs:

New Provost (Good News):  John Manning (AB '82, JD '85) , dean of Harvard Law School, has been named the university's interim provost . Manning, who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia (LLB '60), is widely respected at Harvard by people of all political backgrounds and has a track record of promoting free speech, open inquiry, and constructive dialogue at Harvard. As noted in Harvard's announcement , Manning has worked on "the module on 'difficult conversations' for all 1L students, adoption of a graduation requirement in negotiation/leadership, introduction of the Chatham House Rule for classroom discussions, and establishment of the HLS Rappaport Forum and other public conversations that model civil discourse among people with different points of view." (this is great news -sl)

Antisemitism Taskforce Resignation:  HBS Professor Raffaella Sadun has resigned from the task force , which she co-chaired after only a few months.  An ostensible source close to her said that Sadun “ultimately decided to step down from the task force because its mandate did not include the swift implementation of measures to combat antisemitism,” according to The Crimson .

Bringing Back Real Admissions Testing: Yale has joined Dartmouth and MIT in re-mandating standardized test scores for undergraduate applicants. Harvard currently has a test-optional admissions policy… (it should be obvious that SATs need to come back, and sad Harvard isn’t leading on this -sl)

Debt Offering as Donation Spigot Turns Off:  Many including Bill Ackman jumped on the story of Harvard’s massive debt offering to ask questions about the university’s financial health as donors pull back.  The Crimson pointed out in its article that Harvard, fresh off several expensive and unsuccessful legal battles, also faces a potential $1.2 billion endowment tax from a bill in the Massachusetts legislature…  Harvard’s S&P AAA credit rating (better than the US Government) means that the money won’t be too expensive in the grand scheme of things; however, clearly it isn’t ideal that the university needs to incur the financing cost of debt offering.

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Tarek Masoud has a well-argued piece in the Wall Street Journal , Students Aren’t the Obstacle to Open Debate at Harvard: They want to hear a range of challenging views, but faculty and administrators are afraid to stand up to outside critics and disruptive radicals

Tablet Magazine ran a good piece, Universities Are Making Us Dumber: Lifting the Iron Curtain from academia won’t be easy.  Then Again We Have No Choice .  Author Sergiu Klainerman takes on how DEI initiatives have been wielded to clamp down on free speech, institutional neutrality, viewpoint diversity, and merit-based student admissions and faculty hiring.

Many condemned the Harvard Undergraduate Palestinian Solidarity Committee’s (“PSC”) and the Harvard African and African-American Resistance Organization’s (“AFRO”) apology statement regarding the antisemitic image the organizations posted on Instagram last week. One reader wrote a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times saying, “Are we to believe that students, faculty and staff at the most prestigious university in the United States do not know history and cannot fully grasp the implications of antisemitic tropes? If so, the educational system

in this country is worse than I imagined.”

Another Tablet article, The Takeover: A massive increase in foreign money and students on American campuses is driving radicalization and subsidizing institutional failure , by Neetu Arnold, a Research Fellow at the National Association of Scholars, discusses the nexus between increasing enrollment of international students, DEI and “anti-Israel” protests at Harvard and other major universities.  Her conclusion:  “When MIT president Sally Kornbluth admitted Congress in December that university administrators failed to discipline student protestors who were calling for genocide because of their international status, the public briefly awoke to these issues.  In the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion, higher education administrators continue to offer special treatment to international students–covering for hateful, and possibly illegal, behavior in order to protect a valuable source of revenue.”  

February 23, 2024 — Is Recording Classes Killing Academic Freedom of Speech?

THE BIG IDEA: IS RECORDING CLASSES KILLING ACADEMIC FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

The most interesting idea I heard this week is that a lot of the reason students feel they can't speak up in class anymore / aren't free to try controversial arguments or ask hard questions is that all the classes are recorded. They are worried that their statements will be taken out of context and used against them later in life. This is pretty reasonable TBH. It might be time for Harvard to do their own post COVID 'return to work' push and stop the recording of classes and force students back to in-person classes (which have to be better for everyone anyway). The best companies have done this already, so should the best Universities. Fixing it can't be done at glacial university pace, and administrators need to be willing to cut through red-tape with urgency. Just drop the recordings.

FYIs:

- A group of 'Harvard faculty and staff for Justice in Palestine' made a horrifically and blatantly antisemitic post ... David Wolpe rightly asked ' is there no limit ' -- Garber at least this time responded relatively swiftly, but to what end is TBD...

- Larry Summers has a great take / overview regarding this post and the general state of play at the university here . The whole thread is worth reading, but the short version is that he asks the key central questions including: How does Harvard discipline faculty? How can faculty who were party to the blatantly anti-semitic statements be permitted to remain in positions where they exercise authority over Jewish students? Make admissions decisions? Months after buildings were illegally occupied and classes were disrupted, have any students yet been disciplined? and concludes that "Ineffective responses since October 7 by the Corporation have already brought on the greatest threats to Harvard’s independent ivory tower stance since the McCarthy period." -- Amen.

- The NYT ran a good piece, at Harvard, Some Wonder What it Will Take to Stop the Spiral -- the quote I got in, said Harvard’s governance system is “almost like a peacetime organization,” not suited to navigating troubled waters, he said. Candidates for the Board of Overseers are normally nominated through the alumni association, and the position is often perceived as “a glorified reward for being a booster.” In times like these, we need different people willing to make harder choices steering the ship.

- You might get something out of this great Free Press interview with Roland Fryer talking about how 'all hell broke loose' when he published a study showing no evidence of racial bias in police shootings.

- The Globe published a great op-ed on speech culture ... and The Wall Street Journal published a good article on what Dartmouth is getting right / lessons Harvard could learn from through this period.

- Jewish Insider published a nice article overviewing some of the work we are doing and our approach to activating the strong core of Harvard alum 'moderates' vs. creating more left-right tug of war over the University.