Harvard decides to refrain from saying anything on matters outside of university

The university maintained that it would avoid taking positions on matters that were not related to the core function of the university.

Harvard University leaders announced a new policy after setting up a working group in April to debate on when the university should speak out.

The group said that the university has a “responsibility to speak out to protect and promote its core function,” including to “defend the university’s autonomy and academic freedom when threatened.”

The group said in its report, “The university and its leaders should not, however, issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function,” as reported by CNN.

The report said “In issuing official statements of empathy, the university runs the risk of appearing to care more about some places and events than others. And because few, if any, world events can be entirely isolated from conflicting viewpoints, issuing official empathy statements runs the risk of alienating some members of the community by expressing implicit solidarity with others.”

Institutional Voice Group Details

“Our report argues that the University is fundamentally committed to a non-neutral set of values specifically, getting to the truth by experiment, open inquiry, and debate,” said Noah R. Feldman ’92, who co-chaired the working group and serves as a Harvard Law School professor.

“The University is regularly under attack today, as truth itself is under attack. This report says the University should not be neutral in that important matter of the future of universities," Feldman added.

The university's stance brings it closer in line with the peer universities that have adopted a similar stance of institutional neutrality.

The Background

The move came after the first Black president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, faced intense pressure after her initial public statements on the October 7 terror attack on Israel and she had to step down in January. She was replaced by Alan Garber who announced that the university has accepted the working group’s report and recommendations.

“The process of translating these principles into concrete practice will, of course, require time and experience, and we look forward to the work ahead,” Garber said.

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