Overseer Candidates’ Harvard Priorities [Freedom of Expression Notably Absent]
Harvard Magazine recently published the views of the 2023 Harvard Board of Overseer candidates. The eight candidates, all selected by the HAA Nominating Committee, are running for five Overseer slots. Voting opens March 31st and closes May 16th.
The candidates were asked about Harvard’s most important challenges and opportunities, the Board’s role in responding to the challenges and realizing the opportunities, and how the candidate’s own experience and interests will come into play.
FAIR HA+ reviewed the responses and compiled a short summary of the candidates’ views on free speech and related concerns:
Free speech is mentioned only once (Fiona Hill) and only as a “political flashpoint.”
Freedom of expression, academic freedom and intellectual freedom are never mentioned.
The word freedom (or liberty) is never mentioned.
Veritas is mentioned once as worth pursuing (Liu), and once (Dunn) as secondary re: purpose/values to wisdom and service.
Truth is mentioned twice, and only in the context of “speaking truth to power” (Fiona Hill).
Satcher mentions Harvard’s need to create a model for civil discourse, but doesn’t follow up on how this should be done.
Dunn has well founded concerns about support for democracy, capitalism and America, but doesn’t mention free speech, intellectual freedom or civil discourse at Harvard as part of the issue/solution.
Hill mentions the need to create an open marketplace of ideas, yet suggests achieving this through identity-based admissions.
Vanessa Liu is the only one who dedicated time to these issues with a full paragraph on dialogue across ideological divides as critical to the pursuit of Veritas.
Freedom of expression and academic freedom proliferate higher education news, yet don’t make the priority list of issues facing Harvard for any of the candidates. We do not know if this a blindspot or intentional, or if the omission is intrinsic to the vetting process itself.
The moment is hard to ignore. The University of Chicago is establishing a Center for Freedom of Expression, a center for intellectual diversity has been launched at UVA, UNC’s Board of Trustees recently voted 12-0 to establish a School of Civic Life and Leadership and freedom of expression commitments and statements are being issued by other universities (the latest from MIT, Notre Dame) in addition to the The Chicago Statement which has been adopted and/or affirmed by nearly 100 institutions including Princeton, Columbia, Amherst, Johns Hopkins, Purdue and Georgetown.
Harvard’s Free Speech Guidelines were adopted more than thirty years ago but now may be under scrutiny after 2021 UC legislation proposing that the FAS review and update the Guidelines, adding that they “are a critical component of creating what Dean Gay described in Harvard’s new, anti-racist agenda as an ‘inclusive scholarly community.’ ”
In FIRE’s 2023 Free Speech Rankings, Harvard ranks 170 out of 203 schools with a “below average” speech climate. While Overseer candidates may choose to dismiss rankings, Harvard alumnus and University of Chicago Professor Emeritus Charles Lipson (AM ‘74 PHD ‘76) explains that “the best data on this collapse of campus free speech has been compiled by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. It is based on extensive surveys, not anecdotes. FIRE is politically neutral and was founded to defend all varieties of speech on campus.” And it’s not just the students. FIRE’s 2022 Faculty survey reveals university climates of self-censorship and fear.
Even if these issues aren’t on the candidates’ priority lists, hopefully they are aware that for others at Harvard, issues surrounding freedom of expression, academic freedom and intellectual diversity are front and center. More than 30 Harvard faculty members have accepted an invitation to the Academic Freedom Alliance, including Cornel West, Steven Pinker, Randall Kennedy and numerous HLS faculty members leading the AFA. Upwards of 50 Harvard faculty members are members of the Heterodox Academy. And then there are the hundreds of Harvard alumni, faculty and students who are members of FAIR HA+ and Harvard Alumni for Free Speech.
